Thread: 5.0 Wind-Up Openers

Just going to copy this here because I clicked on the one you posted in Tank Roles, and it’s far more applicable here.

Originally Posted by HyoMinPark

I just briefly skimmed your suggested openers for the two jobs I actively play.

I definitely disagree with your openers for BRD and DNC, but I still wanted to point out something to you regardless of my disagreement because you seem unaware of it: you cannot Barrage Apex Arrow. Your openers both list IJ > Barrage > Apex > PP > RA. This does not work because Apex Arrow is an AOE (even with its 500 potency at 100 Gauge, it has no drop-off), and you cannot Barrage AOE skills. Barrage is, unquestionably, always used with Refulgent Arrow, and Apex is never used at anything less than 100 gauge in most circumstances because the damage scales up to 500 potency. It doesn’t start at 500 potency. If you were already aware that you could not Barrage Apex, then there’s no reason to push it between Barrage and RA: RA should always be your next GCD after hitting Barrage. You also can’t put a PP proc there because it’s always used at 3-stacks now in most circumstances with the removal of Repertoire being reliant on critical ticks from your DoTs.

And you also never open with Army’s Paeon, but with your DoTs straight into Minuet. The Army’s Muse buff is not nearly beneficial enough to warrant that, plus it will leave you songless after Mage’s Ballad expires because AP won’t be off cooldown, which means even more lost damage due to the lack of Repertoire procs on your Soul Gauge. Which means it will take longer for your Soul Gauge to fill.

To add to your healer openers:

Optimally, you’d want at least a minute and 45 secs before the pull to gain all the seals you need plus one extra card. In the worst case scenario, use Sleeve Draw to get all the seals you need.

You cannot fish for AST seals pre-pull. The AST has to be in combat to gain seals from their new cards. This was a deliberate design on the part of the developers to stop the type of pre-pull openers that you have described above.

SCH also shouldn’t dump all their Aetherflow on Energy Drain. While it is a DPS gain, their main job is to heal, and they may need that Aetherflow for an Indom or the like should a fight have early-hitting raidwide AOEs.



I can appreciate that you put in a lot of time and work into this... but a lot of the openers posted here just come off as illogical to me for any of the jobs that I play and know at any sort of decent level. I think that you definitely need to brush up on job mechanics before you start actively theorycrafting more, because there seem to be quite a few that you aren’t entirely aware of. Not to discourage you or be mean or anything, but this document comes off as very misinformed in my opinion.

Originally Posted by Oxdarock

Wow! Oh my goodness, I had no idea Barrage couldn't buff Apex Arrow. My mistake, thank you for the feedback. I'll need to edit that now.

While I see what you mean by being song less after Mages Ballad and how that affects you Soul Gauge gain, it only leaves you in that state for 10-13 seconds, which is the equivalent of six to eight DoT ticks, as Army's Paeon will come off CD by then. I'm not sure if you lose all of your Soul Gauge if your songs fall off, but in the event that you do, wouldn't it make sense to just use it before then? Same thing with PP. If you don't have three Repertoire stacks and the song is about to end, wouldn't you use them anyway? Pretty sure they don't carry over into the next song.

You don’t lose the gauge, but you cannot gain Repertoire without being in a song, meaning that your Soul Gauge will not fill while you are songless and that you have to delay using Apex even more (it takes roughly ~60 seconds to charge to 100 gauge and use as it is with the standard opener and play demonstrated in the ShB BRD guide). The more you delay Apex, the chances are you get fewer uses of it in a given fight, even while considering the RNG aspect to Repertoire and getting the Gauge to 100 in the first place. Even with those 6~8 DoT ticks, that’s 6~8 potential Repertoire ticks. Since each Repertoire gives 5 gauge, that’s a potential loss of 30~40 Soul Gauge. Sure, you may have crap RNG and get 0 procs, but you may also have god-tier RNG and get 6~8 procs of it. It’s best to always assume you’ll get the procs from Repertoire rather than assuming you won’t.

Ideally, you never want to be songless. There may be niche scenarios that call for it (I seem to remember an UwU rotation in SB that had you songless at one point for a brief amount of time in order to realign your rotation due to shifting it around for mechanics in Titan and pre-Suppression Ultima), but ideally you always want 100% uptime on songs. Less than 100% uptime means no Repertoire gain, which means lost damage. (Obviously, this doesn’t count for downtime...don’t sing there; but whenever the boss is targetable, you want to be in a song.)

The only time you use a non 3-stack PP (usually a 2-stack PP in this case) is if: you know that you have EA coming up on the next GCD that lines up concurrently with the DoT tick; or if Minuet is about to end. Your Repertoire do not carry over into Mage’s, but the idea is to milk all you can from the forced procs EA gives and maximize your PP usage. Back in SB, BRDs used to use 2-stack PP during openers due to Chain Stratagem and Battle Litany snapshotting onto our DoTs and pushing our proc rate well into 60+% in order to not overcap our Pitch Perfect stacks and lose damage. However, now, Repertoire is static at 40%, so most cases of PP will be 3-stack.

Originally Posted by Oxdarock

If it had the percentage chance of Monk's Deep Meditation 2 + Bootshine (which is a 70% chance to proc a chakra stack) or BH (which guarantees at least two uses of FC), I could somewhat understand having those assumptions for procs, but not so much at 40%. At most, it means that you miss out on 2-3 procs rather than 6-8 procs. And these openers are all used under the assumption that everyone will be using similar openers that raid buffs end at the same time, so the way it lines up is different from current BRD guides and openers listed elsewhere (or it might be really similar).

I've edited so that PP is put before Apex Arrow. Now there's at least 16-20 seconds between playing Minuet and using PP with an EA in between. Pretty sure it's likely you're get two stacks within that time period.

I may meet my posting limit soon, so if I do not reply further, that is why (forums are limited to 20 posts within a roiling 24 hours and I’ve already been active this morning in other threads).


Even if its 2~3 in reality versus the potential 6~8, you shouldn’t ever act under the assumption you’ll get less procs instead of more. With proc based jobs, I think it’s best to always be prepared for the event that you do get a proc rather than say to yourself “I won’t get a proc”.

That period of songlessness would also likely mean that EA is up at some point. EA is meant to be used on cooldown in most instances, and using it guarantees a Repertoire. You would not want to sit on it during a songless period and risk losing uses of it throughout an encounter.

All that talk about procs being said, regarding your insertion of PP into the openers: while you should always have the mindset of getting and reacting to these procs, you also cannot solidify a spot in openers for RNG or proc-based skills outside of where they are guaranteed (e.g., by Barrage’s Straight Shot Ready trait, DNC procs guaranteed by Flourish, RDM procs guaranteed by Acceleration, etc.). Placing PP there may or may not even be beneficial depending on what kind of PP it is (1-stack, 2-stack, or 3-stack). There’s a reason the standard BRD opener does not include any hard spots for PP, but instead states “Use PP during this time at 3-stacks if/when it procs”. Same for Burst Shots procing RA: if your Burst Shots proc an RA during the opener, you replace it with RA with no question.

I had similar complaints regarding procs with your DNC openers simply because you’re opting for a 1-2 combo before starting Technical, but that risks you getting Reverse Cascade/Fountainfall procs, and you would have to subsequently delay your Flourish to not overwrite those procs, which potentially pushes the Flourished procs out of your TF window depending on your Saber Dance rates AND it means that all future Flourishes will be delayed by that 1 or 2 GCDs from lucky procs.



As for your BRD opener compared to the standard, they are vastly different. The same is for DNC. I guess I’m also just wondering why try to make new openers when others have already figured out the most optimal/standard openers that take into account raid buff alignment already.

Why are you potting so late in your RDM openers? Why are you telling people to hold Embolden so late for their melee combo when it's primary use is as a party buff? Why are you using Enchanted Reprise at all in the second opener when it's primary use is for movement? The usage of Reprise there pushes Scorch outside of the personal buff Manafication has. These Red Mage openers are horribly inefficient, did you do any math at all to come to these conclusions?

[Disclaimer: As of writing this, I’ve only managed to level one class to 80 and have therefore been unable to personally test all of these openers, nor have I been able to find anyone to help test them due to a Catch-22 situation (most people I ask want data before they try them, but I need people to try them to get data. Or they list all sorts of reasons why they won’t work and no suggestions on how they could work). As the amount of sks and sps each player/class has varies, I’ve used a 2.42 recast time as a base. Even the slowest speeds of 2.44 should also be able to work well with every opener. Finally, I’d like to stress that it’s not required to follow these openers. Feel free to use whatever works best for you.]

Oh, it's based completely on feelycraft and you don't have any experience with the vast majority of jobs.