[Stormblood] [Dragoon Rotation] COME ON AND SLAM

[Kacho_Nacho]

I love your guide, Sunny.

One thing of note is due to the dragoon's fixed rotation, the job is more accessible to us players than it would appear at first glance. The abilities allow the player to break things down to easy to follow blocks. So this is truly a case where the job is more complicated on paper than in play. At least, it's been that way up to level 60.

[SunnyHirose]

Most of the gear seems pretty straight forward as to what's BiS. We have a lot of crit/direct hit pieces out there. I've seen the savage pants over the lost allagan ones which baffle me unless the SS is a must. I'm using the omega chest till I beat OS4(currently on Neo). Left side tome piece for me are the head and legs, right side are choke, bracelet and ring

Some people will always think SS is that important. Let them believe that; they're not wrong, it's actually quite subjective--in the sense of "it is not the same for everyone", not "it is an opinion". If you cannot pull off something important without it (e.g. BotD maintenance, extra Jump), then it is important.

A12S was the "oh no" moment for me, had poor framerate (literally can't register the inputs quickly enough) + low SS + SCH switched to Eos to laugh at the raidbusters, so I had the tiniest margin on BotD usually... but I also raided with a MNK, so I was always gonna be one of the upstairs DPS, and if that's the case you can kiss a high Logs percentile goodbye. Decided not to worry about it, at that point I knew I didn't want to stick around longer than it'd take my group to try out a replacement.

From my experience is that openers change slightly with each fight in savage. Some times its Jump first, sometimes its SSD first. It all depends on the fight, when the boss goes invulnerable, what aoes are used when.
i.e. in Neo I like using jump first, since you can get a 2nd jump in before neo goes into his first alpha cross. However in O3S, I like SSD first because if you use jump first may have to hold your 2nd jump as she's doing her first spellblade holy, so you don't get animation locked in a potential blizzard aoe.

TLDR; Basically, everyone is right. Sunny's opener is great, but tweaking may be appropriate depending on fight.

Don't get me wrong, I am not calling diss on anyone or their golden baby opener. Adaptability is so important, even if your raid strategy is inflexible. And this year I will be quite dependent on others for the deets on serious raids. Now, I never really ended up adjusting openers for Alex (except on really bad days with Quickthinx, and Living Liquid / Manipulator tended to force issues), but I was always considering it.

I love your guide, Sunny.

One thing of note is due to the dragoon's fixed rotation, the job is more accessible to us players than it would appear at first glance. The abilities allow the player to break things down to easy to follow blocks. So this is truly a case where the job is more complicated on paper than in play. At least, it's been that way up to level 60.

I'm glad you like it. I hope I can make it much better, of course.

You've got it right on the nose. DRG actions are heavily biased towards immediate rewards, which was SE's old justification for our lower damage. Geirskogul in HW broke this trend a little. Mirage Dive feels a little off, but it's a lot like Power Surge got inverted, so no biggie; at this point, career DRGs are used to a little bit of "no seriously don't mess this up" with jumps no matter whether we care for that aspect.

It's the Lv70 Nastrond system that breaks this trend harshly. It does too much damage to ignore, but I'd just as soon SE found a more satisfying way to accomplish whatever they were hoping to accomplish with it, which I cannot figure out for the life of me.

After some dummy testing and getting used to two sort of different rotations the dps result was almost the same, the only difference that I've noticed is really that the rotation from here doesn't buff the 2nd CT by the Potion.

It wasn't the easiest call to make. Basically what tipped the scales is that infusions aren't very bursty (HQ infusion = +137 STR -> 6.25% buff at i309, 5.35% at i340). After tallying up the damage for two rotations, I found it was a minor improvement to put the pot early because of the excellent gains on Lance Mastery. The game also seems to be a little reluctant giving you a reliably-timed first oGCD directly after engaging (I had previously assumed my fingers were just flubbing it), so a single-weave there at a weak part of the rotation suits me just fine.

[LiquidSwordz]

I never said it isn't an upgrade over a lower ill piece, I've just seen it over the lost allagan pants when it would seem they are the better choice

[Orphan_Benn]

I've just seen it over the lost allagan pants when it would seem they are the better choice

I've been doing testing of Skill Speed in relation to our abilities lining up. Overall I've got to say around 700-1000 feels pretty great (with 300 feeling slow and 1400 being fun but hard to double weave) but the kicker is of course the loss of stats in other areas for taking it. Honestly, until I can get my hands on a full set of both Allagan and Genji to really test out the different builds it's hard to say how much exactly we'll really need but I can say that we do need some. Which seeing as we have to take 117 from the Allagan ring, means that the additional 253 from the Genji legs places us at 734 SS which I think is a pretty nice place for us to be. By using the pants and not other items to get the SS we only lose out on DET, which again isn't too bad at all when you consider that it's 3500 Crit and DH combined that we're really aiming for.

[SunnyHirose]

Hm, I've been testing at 364 SS now and then; didn't detect any serious problems. It may be difficult for some, and may require adjusted expectations, and in the end it may be provably suboptimal if and when someone can outline it in great detail. Though, it is the kind of thing people want the heavy-duty simulators for in other games.

But I don't anticipate any disasters that would put it in the "need" category. If anything, I think it fixes more tough knots than it creates. For instance, the ol' Jump + Life Surge collision doesn't turn up at the normal place. The obvious major drawback is BotD maintenance in low-uptime situations.

[kyrios91]

Just got the O3S pants and i wonder if it's better than the i320 crafted pants?

[SunnyHirose]

(I apologize for some ongoing major delays, I've been a little distracted, shall we say)

To get Geirskogul+2x Nastrond under BfB in your first LotD window, while it is not absolutely imperative, I strongly recommend making BfB at least 2 GCDs before Jump in your opener for the sake of cutting yourself some slack. The logic goes something like:

BfB at X seconds, Jump at Y (Y = X + y, y > 2.3), MD, SSD at Z (Z = Y + z, z > 4.6), MD, Jump at Y+~30, MD, Jump at Y+~60, MD [LotD ready], SSD at Z+~60, BfB at X+~80, Geir, Nas/MD

Because Mirage Dive lasts 15 seconds from the activation of your Jump, you can prove from this sequence that you ought to lose the 5th MD if it happens at the same time as the 2nd BfB, since they can't both be done at the exact same time (and ideally you'd also want it after Geirskogul so it contributes to the next LotD):
Z+60+15 > X+80
Z > X+5
X+min(y)+min(z) = X+2.3+4.6 = X+6.9

So 6.9-5 = 1.9s of slack with a 2.3s GCD. That really isn't ideal, since there's a Geirskogul to smash somewhere in there and possibly a desire to wait on BotD gauge to build. This is the (formalized) reasoning behind why I modified the sample opener to put BfB before Disembowel back in July.

[LiquidSwordz]

As a DRG with having 2.48 GCD, I can tell you it feels too slow. I have the savage chest, allagan legs and genji spear. I believe the savage pants are a must with the SS while still being able to double weave.

As for an opener, this is what I find to be the best without delaying mirage dive...


http://ffxivrotations.com/148w

[Aletin]

Snip

The first one is still going to be stronger, the problem in the second is youre missing the Chaos Thrust being buffed by Dragon Sight which is losing you 62 potency versus the 39 you gain by allowing it to hit the second Wheeling Thrust (overall a 23 potency loss).

If I had to suggest anything, either fit the pot in right before your Heavy Thrust and pull the rest of the buffs back 1 GCD or move Litany to before Heavy Thrust and put Dragon Sight in where it was.

[AgitoKaguya]

The first one is still going to be stronger, the problem in the second is youre missing the Chaos Thrust being buffed

Thanks for the maths. Totally forgot that CT with the dot do more damage than a 5th combo...

You can lower your Skill Speed to better accommodate double weaving

This is what I'm aiming for (the TurtleGoon Build !) cause Sks is totally useless with my ping (9 GCD under B4B ? What is that ?). I tried it one month ago when I still had the Susanoo spear and even if it feels slow, I have a lot of room to work with and skills with short animation lock can be double weave without too much trouble. Sadly atm I just have what I could put my hands on. Can't be choosy with progress gear (looking at you 340 spear )

In the end I will just stick with this cause it's the one I'm the most used to and had the most success with. I will try to use a potion just before HT to see how it goes.

Thanks for all the tips and advice !