Can a ninja explain this to me

[MrCookTM]

You're clipping the GCD. I guarantee it. You have the animation lock of the previous GCD skill, the 1.5s of mudra, and the animation lock of Suiton, and you're trying to fit them all into just over 2s. It's going to clip. If you don't believe me, consider this: Our TP cost per GCD did not change at all with Heavensward, yet we suddenly had more severe TP burn. The reason? We aren't casting Huton anymore, so we aren't getting as much GCD clip.

This. After the 3.1 changes to mudras, we now barely reached the point where raiton is finally better than shuriken IF you have zero lag, even though it still clips very slightly under huton. Any sort of 3-step-mudra will still heavily clip though, and there's no way it's any different for you.

But this is only part of the reason why doing suiton after DE is bad, it also takes up one valuable ogcd spot that is better used for something else. Namely you want to use B4B at that point, in order to get another AE combo after TA under the effect of B4B if you have selene speed buff, wich you will most likely have in most raid scenarios (AST speed buff works too). Double weaving DwaD and mug is also not a good thing, aswell as getting kassatsu on cd that late. Your opener is just all over the place, which is mainly because you have to do it like that, due to your delayed suiton.

[Callback]

This. After the 3.1 changes to mudras, we now barely reached the point where raiton is finally better than shuriken IF you have zero lag, even though it still clips very slightly under huton. Any sort of 3-step-mudra will still heavily clip though, and there's no way it's any different for you.

But this is only part of the reason why doing suiton after DE is bad, it also takes up one valuable ogcd spot that is better used for something else. Namely you want to use B4B at that point, in order to get another AE combo after TA under the effect of B4B if you have selene speed buff, wich you will most likely have in most raid scenarios (AST speed buff works too). Double weaving DwaD and mug is also not a good thing, aswell as getting kassatsu on cd that late. Your opener is just all over the place, which is mainly because you have to do it like that, due to your delayed suiton.

What about my alternate theory then, opening directly with a raw TA and getting the double raiton off during it, but needing to pass up the AE and just duality your DE?

[Sleigh]

What about my alternate theory then, opening directly with a raw TA and getting the double raiton off during it, but needing to pass up the AE and just duality your DE?

Even if such a thing were consistent and do-able in a raid scenario, most openers would not appreciate the very first 10s having Trick Attack applied. The standard roughly-5-seconds-in Trick Attack usually covers any ramp-up a class may have.