How to Dragoon per Second: A DPS Paradigm

[Mycow8me]

Dunno whats so funny. Its a brutal rotation do to too many positionals and buttons. 2 of the positionals you cant even be prepared to move for because you dont know which it will be till combo highlights.
Dont get me wrong, i like drg but the amount of focus and rigidity for the rotation doesnt seem worth the dps it puts out to me.
Its just my opinion tho, git gud and all that jaz. Ya ya well i prefer to git gud on blm since atleast is easier and worth it.

[JackFross]

Ya ya well i prefer to git gud on blm since atleast is easier and worth it.

Dragoon's DPS is more than comparable with Monk's. In equal circumstances, they're off by fewer than like 2% while buffing a MCH/BRD by ~9 or 7% ish. So I dunno?

And, as someone who plays both DRG and BLM at the current time, I strongly disagree with BLM being easier. Its rotation is far more rigid and requires a great deal more skill to pump out equivalent damage to what a Dragoon can do with half the effort. The Dragoon rotation currently is 40% positionals, 60% anywhere skills. Missing your positionals as a Dragoon is more punishing than it is on, say, Monk, since there's so few of them and each is a pretty hefty swing, but they're... really not hard to hit. And missing one or two positionals in a fight is going to happen and it barely impacts your final DPS.

Like, you wave off the "git gud" comment, but, seriously. If you're doing shit damage on Dragoon, you're not playing it well - or correctly. The rotation is only as rigid as you make it, and it's no more or less rigid than either other melee. It's far LESS rigid than Black Mage (if you're trying to play optimally). So meh.

The skills we get from 52-60 are a rather natural extension of the existing skillset. If you're unable to play current Dragoon at a high level, it's not a fault of the job, it's just that its playstyle isn't for you. That's okay. But let's not bash the job and complain about something that a vast number of people do just fine with because it doesn't mesh with how you want to play the game.

[CookieMonsta]

Dunno whats so funny. Its a brutal rotation do to too many positionals and buttons. 2 of the positionals you cant even be prepared to move for because you dont know which it will be till combo highlights.
Dont get me wrong, i like drg but the amount of focus and rigidity for the rotation doesnt seem worth the dps it puts out to me.
Its just my opinion tho, git gud and all that jaz. Ya ya well i prefer to git gud on blm since atleast is easier and worth it.

It is dangerous to fixate too much on personal DPS.
Raid DPS is what kills bosses, not personal numbers. There will come a point in the skill ceiling of every DPS where you will make the choice of increasing your personal numbers or increasing the numbers of the whole raid.
DRG has a lot of tools that enable it to buff raid DPS, sometimes in creative ways. Litany and Disembowel alone are enormous instantly obvious examples but there are more obscure perks like the high durability + bloodbath/Second Wind which free up the healer to DPS while you perform damage taken type mechanics ( I actually absorb some of the Discoid balls in A4S routinely).
Additionally, DRG is actually quite flexible when it comes to mechanics because they have one of the lowest penalty for dropping the self-buff, the loss of Blood of the Dragon is miniscule (likewise Heavy Thrust is a single GCD to reapply and Disembowel is a measly 2 GCDs) compared to Enochian/Astral/Greased III/Huton, this makes their DPS very consistent and resilient in fights like A3S + A4S (quarantine).

[Mycow8me]

I can agree with drgs utility dmg statements but i dont see how you find drg rotation easier than blm. There's just no way, especially saying "half the effort". Since ive switched from drg, its became alot easier. I wont know a damage comparison till blm is geared better but cookiemonsta is right about utility damage so its not fair to compare for raid environments. Either way i feel like im not suffering from tunnel vision and worried about messing up with so many buttons when trying to do drg rotation.
Might just be the play style change that is helping me feel like im performing better, who knows.

[MiniTyra]

BLM is easier to play, but the hardest Job to maximise your DPS and play it the most efficiently. Your movement and positioning playing BLM is more important than any job in the game and you need to think about the Bosses mechanics ahead of time to ensure you have no downtime.

[JackFross]

Additionally, DRG is actually quite flexible when it comes to mechanics because they have one of the lowest penalty for dropping the self-buff, the loss of Blood of the Dragon is miniscule (likewise Heavy Thrust is a single GCD to reapply and Disembowel is a measly 2 GCDs) compared to Enochian/Astral/Greased III/Huton, this makes their DPS very consistent and resilient in fights like A3S + A4S (quarantine).

I would like to add that you also should never be losing Blood of the Dragon in either A3S or A4S until you flub your rotation quite severely (or get horribly screwed during adds phase A3S). It's not necessarily easy to maintain it through Quarantine (since you do need to do a few wonky things to do so, and you need to always assume you'll get every one of them) but it's by no means as difficult to maintain throughout that as Enochian is. Having not even played BLM in savage A4 yet, I can already tell that it would absolutely not be fun to play on legs 1 and 2, especially with the lasers during 2.

It is worthwhile to note that I think the dropoff from Enochian to no Enochian is pretty comparable to the dropoff from BotD to no BotD. The difference in rotational potency feels about the same, from when I did a dirty little parse of it the other day.

BLM is easier to play, but the hardest Job to maximise your DPS and play it the most efficiently. Your movement and positioning playing BLM is more important than any job in the game and you need to think about the Bosses mechanics ahead of time to ensure you have no downtime.

^ This is basically what I was trying to get at. The rotation is simple, if you get to turret. When you don't, though, moving improperly results in MASSIVE chunks of your DPS dropping off really quickly.

[Erys]

For those fellow dragoons that use the default HUD (I like it, keeps the center of the screen clear, lol), rejoyce in the new... amazing... magnanimous... Auto Attack Icon! Layed just above your BotD timer xD
Enjoy the patch, guys.
Good game and git gud.

[PheonixCain]

I would like to add that you also should never be losing Blood of the Dragon in either A3S or A4S until you flub your rotation quite severely (or get horribly screwed during adds phase A3S). It's not necessarily easy to maintain it through Quarantine (since you do need to do a few wonky things to do so, and you need to always assume you'll get every one of them)

I have run into situation that got in quarantine > war and me hammer that add > add died before i cud even landed the 4th hit on it to extend BOTD > long animation being send back to the arena > walked all the way up to the boss > lost BOTD or only had few secs left and combo faded away so i had to use GK and give up that BOTD

[whiskeybravo]

I have run into situation that got in quarantine > war and me hammer that add > add died before i cud even landed the 4th hit on it to extend BOTD > long animation being send back to the arena > walked all the way up to the boss > lost BOTD or only had few secs left and combo faded away so i had to use GK and give up that BOTD

Should've saved SSD

The only times I've lost BotD in quarantine was the 2x GK under B4B before I got sent in. Seemed like most of the other times there was enough time to either connect with the add or get back and connect with the boss t finish the combo. Results vary of course.. And I haven't spent months in that fight like a lot of people, only a few dozen pulls or so, small sample size I guess.

Any ideas on a good couple week gearing path yet? I honestly haven't had time to look at any of the gear yet

[Ninjah2r]

Guys I got the new i220 headpiece today from alex midas nm. What should I meld to it? Det V or Crit V? I'm at 1085 str, 621 acc, 764 crit, and 454 unfooded. Thats why I thought of getting my det up in the first place, cause it's quite low. brionac i210 spear, atm on 2.38 gcd so yeah I'm good for now with ss too I think. (671 ss)