[Stormblood] [Dragoon Rotation] COME ON AND SLAM

[AlereRaeder]

I've got a question: What do you opt out to do with Life Surge now that Full Thrust is 440 potency and the 2nd Fang/Wheeling is 390?

Is it better, after opener, to:
1) Life Surge first Fang/Wheeling
2) Life Surge second Fang/Wheeling

[SunnyHirose]

Factoring out buffs and estimating a crit multiplier of about 1.5 for sake of example.

- Life Surge always held for Full Thrust: crit to a 440p weaponskill once every ~55 seconds, approximately 220/55=4 pps gain over never critting (but you do crit, so, less than that). In event of a single mistake, can be reduced to 2/3 of that (2.67). Two mistakes, 1/2 that (2).
- Life Surge on Full Thrust or the 390: I don't know how this syncs up tbh; in one situation, on the 5th step after a Full Thrust, you would need a very fast GCD for this not to self-correct back to Full Thrust within 2 or 4 rotations. You can still see 195/52 = 3.75 which is better than 2.67.
- Using it just wherever: Average GCD is (180+190+230+270+290+390+150+240+440+290+390)/11=278.18. So, 139.09/50 = 2.78 pps, which is slightly better than holding out for Full Thrust.

Life Surge is a somewhat small portion of overall DPS. It's not nothing, but it's close to being just a feelgood move.

[Jonnycbad]

I don't know why or how but sometimes FT is up in my rotation but Life Surge is still 2-3s away from coming off CD. Tempted to wait for it or use it on a 5th, but what is going on...?

[aleph_null]

In the case of a continuous fight with no interruption for over 3 minutes, the third BfB will be available slightly before the second litany, how would you manage it? Back in 3.x I found holding BfB for a bit to align it with litany to be a good compromise, but now if I do that I might actually lose an eye.

[SunnyHirose]

Well, in HW, you had the 90s cooldown so the sync should've been somewhat natural. Never even considered it, to be honest. (I should state my bias that I was a staunch opponent of holding BfB in ARR. And to this day, I still am biased towards opportunity cost avoidance > marginal gain.) Are we now faced with an era of pooling BfB with BL?

First, I want a fuzzy estimate of Litany interpreted as a damage buff. At 20% natural rate, around 2000 crit (similar to around 1000 crit for the same in HW... it's almost like they plan this stuff!), the multiplier should be 1.55x. So, 1+0.2·0.55=1.11 naturally, and 1.1925 while under Litany. So, interpreted as an averaged-out damage buff, it's 1.1925/1.11=1.074. Pretty close to an eye-ball guess of 1+0.15·0.5=1.075, unlike HW (where at 20% rate it would be ~1.080).

(1.15·1.074·20+1.15·8·20+1.074·3·20+480)/720=1.046 synced naturally (it takes 12 minutes!)
(1.15·1.074·20+1.15·20+140)/180=1.043 manually synced

In other words, I wouldn't intentionally hold to put these together. But I also wouldn't necessarily complain if it were forced to happen... or if we had 160s Battle Litany just to make most of our teammates bemoan the timing ;D

I don't know why or how but sometimes FT is up in my rotation but Life Surge is still 2-3s away from coming off CD. Tempted to wait for it or use it on a 5th, but what is going on...?

It's not a situation I've run into before. I'll talk about something else, perhaps the reason why I can't corroborate: I've pretty much erred on the side of clipping into FT slightly when a Life Surge problem comes up! For years!

I've gotten away with it despite how counterintuitive it is; isn't clipping bad? Yes. Very. But the problem is, that doesn't hold so strictly when there is a fairly immediate interplay with your GCDs. It's better considered a part of the GCD subsystem, kinda.

? (/ (+ 180 190 230 270 290 390 150 240 440 290 390) 27.0)
113.333336 ; this might be your rotation, ish.
? (/ (+ 180 190 230 270 290 390 150 240 (* 440 1.25) 290 390) 27.25)
116.33028 ; LS with a really really bad 0.5s clip on FT but smooth for the second cycle
? (/ (+ 180 190 230 270 290 390 150 240 440 290 (* 390 1.25)) 27.0)
116.94444 ; smooth all the way through but you wait for 5th step
? (/ (+ 180 190 230 270 290 390 150 240 (* 440 1.25) 290 390) 27.1)
116.97417 ; LS with 200ms clip, which most people would notice

So uh... yeah. Maybe this is bad, but in that case, "ahm bad".

[aleph_null]

(1.15·1.074·20+1.15·8·20+1.074·3·20+480)/720=1.046 synced naturally (it takes 12 minutes!)
(1.15·1.074·20+1.15·20+140)/180=1.043 manually synced

In other words, I wouldn't intentionally hold to put these together. But I also wouldn't necessarily complain if it were forced to happen... or if we had 160s Battle Litany just to make most of our teammates bemoan the timing ;D

Hmm, I guess unless BfB is naturally shifted due to mechanics or phase changes I should just use litany on cd. Thanks a lot, that was insightful. Also yeah 160s litany would make everyone lose their minds lol.

[mugenwalker]

Can we talk about why DRGs STILL have 5% on piercing? I understand it was a nerf during Creator, but why is slashing still 10% then? It is far more potent than piercing. DRGs are the only melee without 10% resistance. YOSHI PLS

[Nominous]

Can we talk about why DRGs STILL have 5% on piercing? I understand it was a nerf during Creator, but why is slashing still 10% then? It is far more potent than piercing. DRGs are the only melee without 10% resistance. YOSHI PLS

It is not more potent than piercing.

When you look at Slashing, there's 5 Jobs that have that damage type. However, only 2 lack the ability to provide it for themselves (DRK/PLD). The other 3 (SAM/NIN/WAR) have the debuff as a required component in their rotations. Simply put, that means PLD and DRK are the only real beneficiaries of the debuff. The balance in the Slashing debuff is mostly in that multiple Jobs bring it, and the benefiting Jobs are guaranteed to be in the party (at least 1 of 2 only if you bring a WAR). It can't hurt the meta because of the nature of party setup. While the percentage is higher, those who you're bringing Slashing debuff for do less damage, so the rDPS contribution is lower than piercing.

Piercing is done by 3 Jobs, and only 1 (DRG) provides piercing. That's the first problem. If anyone's to benefit from Piercing, it forces you to lock at least 2 of 4 slots. And if both BRD and MCH are in good spots, offering great DPS and/or utility, you've locked 3. Overall rDPS contribution is higher, due to MCH/BRD damage being higher. The potential it has for stifling variety in party composition is too great, because any buff to Piercing brings us closer to DRG/MCH/BRD meta. Buffs to Slashing certainly change the overall output of each individual Slashing Job, but it wouldn't affect the overall party composition as much as Disembowel could alone.

Coming from a DRG main since 2.0, dabbling in other melee. It needed toned down. More specifically, all of these debuffs need replaced with something a little more interactive or interesting.

[LiquidSwordz]

Does anyone know the dps difference between both body pieces. At first I thought the time body was BiS because of how good direct hit is and the buff to determination but I'm seeing the savage body being BiS.

[SunnyHirose]

And at what point do I do a chaos dunk?

The first time will be an accident and nearly everyone who survives it will hold a grudge against you for the rest of your life. Also the Deactivated Ultimate B-Ball mount will drop and you will roll 99. Riding a bouncing Allagan orange into the sunset, you casually remark once again that you are not a role model, despite any indications to the contrary.

Does anyone know the dps difference between both body pieces. At first I thought the time body was BiS because of how good direct hit is and the buff to determination but I'm seeing the savage body being BiS.

1) There is a lot of misinformation out there concerning the relative merits of DH vs. CH. This is not my first rodeo, though, so I waited to see what the choices were before drawing any conclusions. Even though I'm basically looking at the same formulas as anyone else....

2) The BiS is just a guess. But I am a good guesser, if I do say so myself. Unfortunately, recent investigations show that I do actually have to do the thing I didn't want to have to, which is to write a computer program to find the real one via exhaustive search.

3) Specific gear pieces don't actually do more or less damage; the difference is only accurate in context of the rest of the set. Plus, with accuracy requirements removed and TP relaxed greatly, there aren't even those few pieces that are nigh on unusable like there used to be.

Secondaries matter so little that the difference between that BiS guess and going all Lost Allagan + Genji spear + Genji ring is about 0.6%. Just the weapon and one of the rings is the discernible difference between a raider's and a non-raider's potential DPS, once upgrade items start being available outside raids (happens in odd-numbered patches).