How to Dragoon per Second: A DPS Paradigm

[Judge_Xero]

Is it better to look at gearing for frontal accuracy or flank accuracy in Midas Savage as melee?

[aleph_null]

Is it better to look at gearing for frontal accuracy or flank accuracy in Midas Savage as melee?

I'd say front, there are a lot of times when you have to hit the boss from the front (A5S/A6S stack share dmg, and likely in A7S/A8S as well, though I haven't been there yet).

[Judge_Xero]

I'd say front, there are a lot of times when you have to hit the boss from the front (A5S/A6S stack share dmg, and likely in A7S/A8S as well, though I haven't been there yet).

A5S there's a stack buster where he faces you, and if you get picked for a dash, you'll get a GCD on his face when he hits you.
A6S Blaster dash dodges sometime necessitate front punches to not die and keep dps up, Brawler has a stack mechanic where he faces the boss for a solid 2-3 gcds, Swindler snipers sometimes look at you, and Vortexer you stack at his front for water in some strats.
A7S I haven't seen yet, but I am /fairly/ sure you need front cap, at least for the part where you're trapped in a box and baiting aoes as a group.
A8S has all of the A6S adds again with the same mechanics (more or less) so it's highly likely you'll be hitting front there. But again, not there yet so /shrug.

Thanks both for the information. It does appear that in those sections of the fight it is difficult to perform the mechanics and maintain positionals. It does not appear that any small amount of secondaries traded to meet Flank VS Frontal accuracy would be worth losing a mid combo rotation on a melee class given bad RNG.

[JackFross]

A5S there's a stack buster where he faces you, and if you get picked for a dash, you'll get a GCD on his face when he hits you.
A6S Blaster dash dodges sometime necessitate front punches to not die and keep dps up, Brawler has a stack mechanic where he faces the boss for a solid 2-3 gcds, Swindler snipers sometimes look at you, and Vortexer you stack at his front for water in some strats.
A7S I haven't seen yet, but I am /fairly/ sure you need front cap, at least for the part where you're trapped in a box and baiting aoes as a group.
A8S has all of the A6S adds again with the same mechanics (more or less) so it's highly likely you'll be hitting front there. But again, not there yet so /shrug.

[Waliel]

A7S I haven't seen yet, but I am /fairly/ sure you need front cap, at least for the part where you're trapped in a box and baiting aoes as a group.

The hammers don't target the MT, so you should be able to hit the flanks at least, but I'm pretty sure everything during jail is frontal.

[JackFross]

The hammers don't target the MT, so you should be able to hit the flanks at least, but I'm pretty sure everything during jail is frontal.

Good to know!
And my group is currently letting our NIN be the one to bait double drill on Brawler, so I'm really hoping they're not throwing me into jails. The DPS differential between the two of us is rather wide.
I'll never understand how a couple dropped GCDs for NIN is worse for the NIN than a dropped GCD and a potentially lost gsk is for me, but that's neither here nor there.


I just want to kill A6S at this point. My group's been at it ~23 hours according to raid leader, and we're currently struggling to finalize a good strategy for handling the second bait + fire lines + third pass.

Also re: Vortexer - my group does a triangle thing. First pass at N (A), second pass at SE (B), third pass at SW (C), and my group has been getting pissy with me for using SSD after water and before ice to hit a 4th hit before running back to drop ice if I get it, so I just now don't use gsk OR Phlebotomize in my opener so that I hit the 4th on the boss before he's dragged away (30s timer) then wait in my spot for ice marks, then DFD if I don't have one. I'm planning to SSD during the B4B there (I use a second b4b at the end of Swindler after snipers since we're still a bit off and I get the full duration of it) if I didn't get picked for the second water (since then I'd SSD back after the third thunder pass). I use Elusive to get to C after the second pass completes so I can be in position for the bait and everything. If I get first water, I Elusive at ~4-5s to be in position for Thunder.

My runs where I don't die see me hovering around 1550 in fflogs on the parse page (and napkin math told me that run would have been ~1430) - so basically, does this sound like an effective strategy to handle Vortexer the way my group is doing it? We haven't seen second rotation yet, but I'm hoping using DFD where I do will have it ready for where I'd normally SSD on the first set, but I'm pretty sure I'll end up having to run at some point, no matter what... Anyone have exact timings between passes? Like from 1>2>3>4>5>6?

[Waliel]

Good to know!
And my group is currently letting our NIN be the one to bait double drill on Brawler, so I'm really hoping they're not throwing me into jails. The DPS differential between the two of us is rather wide.
I'll never understand how a couple dropped GCDs for NIN is worse for the NIN than a dropped GCD and a potentially lost gsk is for me, but that's neither here nor there.

Both melees can stay on the boss, if you position like this:



Just be sure to be at max melee range. MT disengages to north. Not sure if you can fit in more with careful positioning -- just the two gets pretty tight.

[Ash_Smokespear]

I'm just a noob who hasn't even gotten past Brawler yet (mostly wiping on Blaster still) but when we do get to try Brawler, it seems to work fine when positioning like in the above image and having both tanks stack on one of the melee at max melee range while the other melee moves in slightly closer. Haven't seen the stacked group get hit yet.