AND WELCOME TO THE JAM
[work in progress - beware! some of this was written before patch 4.05; it probably has wrong things in it already. I fully intend to update this guide to reflect new discoveries]
This is a basic player-written guide to playing PvE dragoon in FINAL FANTASY XIV: Stormblood. It is intended primarily for beginners, so a common theme running throughout this guide will be the "low hanging fruit"--to prioritize effort on maximal returns before attending to other concerns. As such, I have attempted to sort its content roughly from most to least general. However, advanced discussion as in past dragoon threads is welcomed and encouraged.
Before we begin: FINAL FANTASY XIV Job Guide is a good, easily navigable resource listing our actions and their properties. While pictures are valuable and I will add them at a later time, I will be referring to many skills by full name, as they should be easier to search using your browser.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. basic rotation, openers
2. recovery
3. priority: understanding potency/time, bonuses, hitboxes, character lock
4. skill-by-skill breakdown, job mechanics
5. stats and gearing
6. making keybinds you can work with
7. rotations while leveling or level synced
8. fight specific advice, blooper reel
9. resources / past threads / special thanks / about the author
10. Changelog
Intentional omissions:
- In-depth calculations to justify why a technique is recommended. I mean to get around to such things in later posts, but finding rotational optima takes far less time than it takes to rigorously spell out why one case does more damage or not. And many players have found the numbers-and-abbreviations-scattered-everywhere approach to be an onerously obfuscatory aspect of anterior dragoon didactics hard to read. I can always change a recommendation (and they will change, I guarantee it). I can't do 100% of a job's theorycrafting.
- Gains from corner cases that only debatably or honestly shouldn't exist. Feel free to discuss in the thread as per tradition, but I have no intent of including "you might be fooling yourself" kinds of gains in a basic guide. I'm trying to encourage expected utility rather than expected value.
- A retrospective of how abilities have changed before the creation of this guide. I miss them myself, but our old stuff isn't slated to come back during this guide's useful lifetime. This may fail to address the needs of returning dragoons. However, I'm trying to err on the side of servicing those who due to newness, inflexibility, or not specializing in dragoon is staring at 30-odd necessary/good keybinds they don't fully understand. Such a person can't afford to get distracted by our cool but deleted stuff.
Hopefully added soon:
- Images so you can skip as many words as possible (press F to pay data plan)
- The other 10% of the guide (that comprises 90% of the text)
- Better visual hierarchy
- Markers for Ctrl+F navigation
1. basic rotation, openers
This guide may seem daunting and panic-worthy. Please don't. Take it one step at a time. Most of dragoon can be played according to weaponskill priority.
Birds-Eye View
Figure 1: Single Target rotation
Against a single target, the priority is Heavy Thrust buff > Chaos Thrust combo > Full Thrust combo. Against three or more targets, the priority is Heavy Thrust buff > Doom Spike combo.
So, with 30 second timings on the top two priorities, our single-target weaponskill rotation is a loop slightly short of 30 seconds:
Heavy Thrust (flank)
Impulse Drive
Disembowel
Chaos Thrust (rear)
Wheeling Thrust (rear)
Fang and Claw (flank)
True Thrust
Vorpal Thrust
Full Thrust
Fang and Claw (flank)
Wheeling Thrust (rear)
And our 3+ target weaponskill rotation is also a loop:
Heavy Thrust (flank)
[Doom Spike (line AoE)
Sonic Thrust (line AoE)]x6
At two targets, things are highly situational. In practice, this situation doesn't last long, rendering the differences negligible.
Option 1: Use Chaos Thrust on both. This is highest damage for two long-lived targets (~12s post-Chaos Thrust).
Option 2: Use Doom Spike combo on both. This is highest damage for two targets that are both about to die.
Option 3: Use single-target except you put the Chaos Thrust DoT on a secondary target. This is not theoretically efficient unless it is desirable one target dies sooner. It warrants a mention in my mind because sometimes in dungeons a tank and a DPS will focus one enemy and you might as well roll with it.
Single Target Opener
Moreover, abilities need to be included in between weaponskills where possible and appropriate. There are some caveats with certain abilities which will be covered in chapters 3 and 4.
Those not being written for the moment, note that
(1) certain pairs of abilities can be used in rapid succession by most players without delaying weaponskills, but a potion is not in this class,
(2) the DPS loss from using abilities one at a time between weaponskills due to your network connection is minor next to the loss from delaying weaponskills by using too many abilities at once; however, the important part of a good opener is not its micro-level potency but its macro-level ideal of getting damage cooldowns rolling in a staggered fashion. The merits of one good opener versus another are not in proportion to how many Internet discussions there are about them (... not that they aren't important to have). Most players will get the best results from double-weaving in the opener and single-weaving afterwards. Players with catastrophic latency are the ones who need to single-weave all the way.
(3) Blood of the Dragon is a potential exception to (2)--although it does no damage of its own, it must be activated before Chaos/Full Thrust to use Wheeling Thrust and Fang and Claw at all, and should be maintained as much as possible, because it is required to enable about 36% of our total potential raid damage as of Lakshmi/Susano (Extreme).
(4) Dragon Sight needs to be used on a teammate. This presents some difficulties; enough that it probably deserves a mini-guide. Some players are quick enough to select a teammate during their opener, but most will need to use a macro, all while trying not to run afoul of the GCD.
This is a sample single-target opener*; it is one of many viable openers. It is not necessary to be dogmatic with regards to the ordering of buffs used before the first jump, only that the potion is not paired off and Blood of the Dragon is active in time to extend it with Wheeling Thrust.** In the interests of simplicity, I have chosen an order that avoids certain complications, but we will investigate variations later on (planned for chapter 3):
(Heavy Thrust) strength potion***
(Impulse Drive) Blood of the Dragon + Blood for Blood
(Disembowel) Battle Litany + Dragon Sight
(Chaos Thrust) Jump
(Wheeling Thrust) Mirage Dive + Geirskogul
(Fang and Claw) Spineshatter Dive
(True Thrust) Dragonfire Dive
(Vorpal Thrust) Mirage Dive + Life Surge
(Full Thrust)
(Fang and Claw)
(Wheeling Thrust)
From then on, weaponskills loop and these abilities are usually best used on cooldown à la Whac-A-Mole, with the following notable exceptions:
(1) Blood of the Dragon should not be re-popped unless you have not been able to maintain the gauge and are a couple seconds from losing it.
(2) Dragonfire Dive might be good to hold if you know a fight very well and want to use it to travel.
(3) Jump, Spineshatter Dive, and Dragonfire Dive temporarily prevent free movement; these are the primary agents responsible for the job's reputation as an AoE magnet. Learn when to hold them very quickly, because you will usually learn it the hard way.
(4) Mirage Dive can be held for a bit, but hopefully should be executed before using the next Jump or Spineshatter Dive. This is part of our level 70 mechanic.
(5) Geirskogul ideally should be held if you are about to get your 4th or 3rd and 4th Mirage Dive, perhaps even longer, particularly if you have not missed a single beat. This is another part of our level 70 mechanic.
In many raid situations, it is probably advisable to precast True North at the beginning or pair it with Geirskogul; the pull is a difficult time to get positional bonuses. Diversion is also a serious consideration for serious high-damage groups. But you might also use a different opener depending on how raid bosses interrupt your uptime.
* It warrants mentioning that someone else has probably come up with this by coincidence.
** Blood of the Dragon contributes no damage of its own, and can be precast shortly before the pull if desired with no ill effect to damage (e.g. to give a margin of error for using Dragon Sight). It must be active before Chaos Thrust and must have time remaining by the time you use Wheeling Thrust to extend it. It takes roughly 10 seconds to get through those weaponskills. Therefore, a pull countdown timer should be well below 10s to do this safely.
***For serious raiding, use the best potion you can afford. As of v4.05, HQ Infusion of Strength is the best strength potion, lasting for 30s. You can buy cheaper ones from NPC vendors for practice, probable wipes, and casual content. Most players opt not to use potions in casual content; you can skip this step if you like. If you do that, it is technically better to bump certain abilities up in schedule or space out one of your double-weaves (especially Dragon Sight), but be aware that Disembowel must be on a target before any of your damage can benefit from it, so avoid putting Jump after it and don't attempt Geirskogul until late in the weaponskill cooldown if you use it right before Chaos Thrust.
Life of the Dragon
Okay, I've put this off long enough. Our level 70 mechanic is Life of the Dragon. Don't forget, I've been saving the best for first here. Taking care of all the above is about 95% of our damage. This is more of a cherry on top, and frankly it involves a great deal of management once you deviate from a perfect world (dummy) scenario. Above all, try not to let the stress of this management get to you. With a bit of practice even this can be second nature.
As depicted in the "Job Gauge" section of the Job Guide,* you are trying to execute a Mirage Dive after each Jump and Spineshatter Dive while not letting Blood of the Dragon's effect drop. After four charges, you can enter the Life of the Dragon status by activating Geirskogul, and enable the use of Nastrond two or three times.
*That section of the Job Guide as of v4.0 refers to Mirage Dive and Nastrond as weaponskills. This is inaccurate. They are abilities, and the action listing is correct.
Aside: maintaining Blood of the Dragon
Starting in Patch 4.05, the Blood of the Dragon effect starts at 20 seconds remaining when you use the ability, and can be extended to a maximum of 30 seconds. The skills Fang and Claw, Wheeling Thrust, and Sonic Thrust (when used as part of a combo) extend the effect by 10 seconds. As long as there is an enemy to hit and TP to use, maintenance isn't really a problem; and if you've extended the effect more than once, it should be pretty hard to lose, because that way you can activate Blood of the Dragon again to take the countdown back to 20 seconds.
Life of the Dragon reverts to 20 seconds on Blood of the Dragon when it expires. Using Blood of the Dragon during Life of the Dragon will revert to Blood of the Dragon status with 20 or more seconds left, so it is not in your interest to ever do this.
Here's the rub.
Geirskogul's cooldown is 35 seconds. On average, if you used a Jump every 30 seconds and Spineshatter Dive every 60 seconds, that should give you your four Mirage Dives about every 80 seconds (with some staggered timing, of course). So it is easy to hit Geirskogul thoughtlessly at ~70 seconds and push back Life of the Dragon status for 35 seconds, in the meantime having to use Mirage Dives that won't count towards a new Life of the Dragon.
What's more, there is a decent reward if you can manage to sync the 80 second Blood for Blood cooldown with Life of the Dragon, and an incredible reward if you can use three instead of two Nastronds. That kind of gain, as long as you get it, is worth delaying Life of the Dragon by up to 12 and 40 seconds respectively. But mathematically you can only get the three if you activate Life of the Dragon at above 20 seconds left on Blood of the Dragon (if activated below 20 seconds, Life of the Dragon will start at 20 seconds left), so really you have to use an extender shortly beforehand, too. If I may opine, that's way too many conditions to be waiting on, but that's unfortunately how to play (at least at this time).
A temporary note for v4.05: A nice thing about the 20s Blood of the Dragon is that it applies when you leave Life of the Dragon, so a lot of these things line up more naturally, at least in a dummy rotation. Before it felt like you were really stranded to get a nice timer before hitting Geirskogul, but now getting 3 Nastronds should be as simple as making it to your first extender move.
What this all really means is: once you get past the extremely awkward part of how the first Life of the Dragon is just completely missing from your opener, you can think of every other Geirskogul as "entering Life of the Dragon" or as "the one just after it" instead of sweating when to hold it. Another rule of thumb (as of v4.05) is that if you have not had any downtime and have executed all Mirage Dives properly, you can wait to hit Blood for Blood before using Geirskogul; the second one is therefore safe to use if the Blood For Blood cooldown clock is pointing downwards (35-45s remaining).
AoE opener
Finally, lest we forget: a sample AoE opener. The abilities are basically in the same order as the single-target opener I gave above, though counterintuitively it still puts off Dragonfire Dive. This is because Nastrond does have a high AoE priority. As with single-target, you may want to hold Geirskogul for the sake of entering Life of the Dragon. Slot Invigorate as a Role Action; you might not even need someone to Goad you (on a really good run, maybe not even the tank will). Although it is important to position yourself to hit enemies with your line AoEs, try to judge whether it is more helpful to focus one enemy or to spread your single-target abilities. And... do keep a finger on your Elusive Jump button just in case.
(Heavy Thrust) Blood of the Dragon + Battle Litany
(Doom Spike) Dragon Sight + Blood for Blood
(Sonic Thrust) Jump
(Doom Spike) Mirage Dive + Geirskogul
(Sonic Thrust) Spineshatter Dive
(Doom Spike) Dragonfire Dive
(Sonic Thrust) Mirage Dive
(Doom Spike) Life Surge + Invigorate
(Sonic Thrust)
...
Certain actions are missing before you hit level 70, the maximum character level in Stormblood. It is okay to just omit what has not been learned in the level 70 rotation, but it may not be optimal. This will be covered in chapter 7.
Chapter 1 addendum
So the above part is really what an experienced player will need out of this guide. It might be okay to stop reading here. For others, I will try to overexplain a few terms so that my meanings are as clear as they need to be when I use them in the rest of this document. If I merely further lose you, well, I suppose you're in good company! If you are an experienced player, you can simply ponder that the ton of text below is all stuff you know.
MMORPGs infamously put a lot of burden of knowledge on the player. Players of these games as well as the games themselves therefore have a lot of jargon for the sake of sharing this knowledge. Alas, FFXIV's own terms have some internal consistency, but it is rarely the case they are used or used properly by players, who tend to use terms that apply to many MMORPGs. Allow me to attempt some harmonization between these.
Dragoon (abbreviated DRG) is a DPS (Damage Per Second) job in FFXIV. Some players call this role DD (damage dealer), and they have a point, I suppose. The DPS role's major responsibility in FFXIV's group content--such as instanced dungeons, trials, and raids--is to deal a high rate of damage to enemy characters ("mobs"), an idea so straightforward that the role is named for its own unit of performance.
It is implicit, however, that this is ideally done without endangering your party's success. Thus it is important to know what actions do and what status effects mean. The FFXIV HUD displays short text explaining these in the "Action Help" window (informally, "tooltip"). This window can be displayed by hovering the cursor over an action in the "Actions & Traits" window, or a mouse cursor over an action on the action hotbar. In some sense, this guide is an intensive elaboration on these explanations, because they are terse and easy to misinterpret.
In MMORPG jargon, rotation is the term for the order in which actions (usually that of a player) are used. Players of some MMORPGs may boggle at "rotations" that have a semi-random order to skill usage, but in FFXIV, most (not all) DPS jobs in FFXIV genuinely do cycle through the same weaponskills in the same-ish order so long as you have uninterrupted uptime--the time you are actively attacking with as many actions as you can (as opposed to downtime).
Weaponskills, for that matter, mostly share the same moderately short (~2.5 seconds) cooldown. A cooldown or recast timer is a limiter imposed on actions such that they cannot be reused until that timer is "off cooldown"; the resulting cooldown period prevents actions from being used faster than game rules allow and game technology can handle. The recast period of actions can be viewed in the "Action Help" window. When "on cooldown", an action's icon will be dimmed, while a radar-like sweep animation rotates at such a speed that the icon is revealed when the action is ready again (it also flashes just beforehand).
Informally--in practically all player discussions and even in Live Letters--the weaponskill cooldown is called the "global cooldown" (GCD) and weaponskills are therefore called GCDs. Please note this is not the true global limiter of FFXIV--called "character lock" in v4.0 materials--but it would be very pedantic to insist on this.
Weaponskills should not be (but often are, sometimes even in official materials) confused with abilities, a different kind of action. Most abilities have their own unshared cooldown timers (typically from 10 seconds to a few minutes long). These tend to have more pronounced effects than weaponskills but most are infrequent enough to only contribute a small fraction towards a job's total performance. Due to character lock, the most efficient way to use most abilities is to weave them in while the weaponskill cooldown is running; most abilities hence qualify as "off-global cooldown" (oGCD) in informal terms. Character lock plays a large enough role in dragoon gameplay to warrant consideration; this will come in chapter 3.
Status effects (or "auras") are temporary or semi-permanent ("stance") properties affecting characters. A buff is MMORPG jargon for a strengthening status effect. A debuff is a weakening status effect. There is room for some confusion: in a context of developers adjusting parts of the game, a buff is a strengthening and a nerf is a weakening. FFXIV differentiates buffs and debuffs in the combat log ("gain" vs. "suffer") and in your own HUD's status display; enemies and party members have them arranged separately but not differentiated. DoT (damage over time) refers to a kind of debuff that deals damage; informally these statuses are called "dots" and "bleeds", which deal damage in intermittent "ticks" as their timer winds down.
Pooling buffs is the act of holding them so that their multiplicative or immediate ("burst") effect is greater. In FFXIV this is generally inadvisable, but in specific circumstances can pay off, particularly with the end of a fight a known time away. Mechanics of Stormblood's dragoon also strongly encourage it, at least on a dummy.
A large portion of FFXIV's combat gameplay revolves around avoiding enemy AoE (area of effect) attacks. "AoEs" (also "AEs") are sometimes intended to be unavoidable, but most are meant to be avoided, hit players for very high damage, and/or leave a devastating negative status effect. Most AoEs have distinctive telegraphs while the enemy casts, but some do not; most of these, in turn, judge a character's position when the cast ends, but some do it when the spell's animation ends, or by leaving a persistent AoE on the playing field (some of these have positive effects). It is worth noting that a player's position in PvE content is judged based on the very center of their targeting circle, even though distance to an enemy is based on the edge of its targeting circle.
On top of pulling their weight in contributed damage, one hallmark of a dragoon people like to have on their team is that they are skilled at avoiding AoE damage. This is in conflict with both the dragoon's "animation lock" on certain abilities where they are stuck in place momentarily, and with all melee DPS jobs' significant damage bonus from positional requirements, being executed from the flank (side) or rear (back) of a target.
FFXIV's game system text in English makes frequent use of the passive voice. This cuts down the size of text, but confuses many new players because it is grammatically ambiguous. The agent ("by ___") is implied to be the character that effect is on. Thus, "Critical Hit" or "Determination" stats (e.g.) on your gear only affects your personal performance, not incoming damage or heals. "Damage dealt" means damage you deal, not damage to you.
It is important to keep up with class and job quests in FFXIV as you level. For dragoons in particular, several of our most damaging actions are rewards for completing these quests.
I hope that gets some important ideas out of the way.
2. recovery [0% complete]
No matter how good a player is at the game, they will occasionally flub something they needed to do to maintain the perfect sequence of skills. More often, they have been forced into an error from poor judgment (theirs or someone else's) of placement/movement, network lag, and unavoidable things an enemy target is trying to do to kill the player characters. This section will be about what to do when you are not fighting a dummy anymore.
TBA
Originally Posted by BlackThought
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