Thread: 5.0 Wind-Up Openers

Originally Posted by Kitfox

From what I know, he actually did consult some of our monks, he was given feedback and numbers, even simulated dps differences for the rotations and reasons why they were inferior, but all of that was readily ignored and he continued to call their guide "perfectly viable."

I see. If that is true, then that is unfortunate.

OP, I highly recommend you take what these players have to say seriously and to heart. I know that they work really hard on everything they do, and they probably know more about these jobs than you and I do. So I definitely don’t think the way to go about diving into theorycrafting is to ignore the theorycrafters and their math.

I also think you should play the jobs before you attempt to theorycraft them. Again, I mean no offense, but you haven’t even unlocked DNC, yet you’re trying to argue with me about optimal play and how the job actually works when I have been playing it since the expansion dropped and reading up on every bit of information the DNCs release that I can find. My performance may not be as great as theirs and I have a long way to go towards optimizing, but I like to think that I understand the theory and how the job plays a bit more than someone who hasn’t unlocked it.... I won’t attempt to speak on in-depth things about jobs I don’t know about purely because it’s likely I’d be wrong about it. So I really think you should consider doing the same.

Originally Posted by Oxdarock

This actually caught me in the beginning to. When it comes to weaponskills, the math is reversed. So for example, if your GCD were 2 seconds and you multiplied it by 5, the number you get is actually when the 6th GCD comes out. So with Standard Step, it goes 1.5+1+1= 3.5. That's when you can use Standard Finish. Same thing goes for Tech Step/Finish.

Technical is 7s and Standard is 5s for the entirety of them. As you cannot use any GCDs until your Standard Finish and Technical Finish resolve due to them being bound to the GCD—and since we are talking about GCD skills here with Flourished procs and Saber Dance—that is why I have stated that the durations are 5s and 7s, respectfully.

I’m not even discussing the math here—I know that the hit for SF and TF come before the 5s and 7s (at 3.5s and 5.5s, respectfully). I’m talking purely about the duration of the skills themselves, which I think is important to note provided the conversation we were having about Flourish, utilizing the Flourished procs, and Saber Dance utilization.



EDIT: And I have hit the posting limit:

Originally Posted by Oxdarock

Yes. It is important. Which is why I started that it takes at least 8 seconds to use all four Flourish moves back to back.

But you also ignored that you have to fit in a SF into your TF windows (eating up 5s of time), and that you also have to keep an eye on Saber Dance and use it so as to not overcap on Esprit, which can generate at an alarmingly high rate during TF with any party that is competent at what they do. The whole point I was making was that, by delaying your Flourish, you are inviting the potential of pushing Flourished procs outside of your major burst window (Technical/Devilment), which is a DPS loss. Your opener invites blatant delay of the skill compared to the standard opener that the DNC theorycrafters have provided, which is why I think it’s inefficient.

The standard opener for DNC is as follows:

-15s: Standard Step > Step > Step
-2s: Potion
On pull: Standard Finish > Technical Step > Step x4 > Technical Finish > Flourish > Rising Windmill > Devilment > priority based on (in order of priority): Saber Dance, Standard Finish, Flourished Procs (Fountainfall, Reverse Cascade, and Bloodshower) while weaving in FD3s and FD1s.

The only variant of this is if you have Dance Partnered with a DRG or a NIN, which favor a Devilment before you start Technical because it lines up better with their burst as opposed to the Devilment after Rising Windmill. As DNC is a support job, you adjust to support your partner with Devilment usage.

It’s also worth to mention that this opener lines up with all standard job openers so that Technical falls in line with both raid buffs and any personal buffs jobs may have, allowing them to have a strong burst.

As a raider and a black mage i can tell you that you're very misinformed about the job if you think that thats an acceptable opener(in what world is it acceptable to do that many fire 3s and blizzard 3s in an opener?).

Do you even take into account astral fire buffs? Or the PPC math of the opener you show in your doc?

Thats just blatant misinformation that some players out there are going to use thinking that its an acceptable thing to do and i shudder just thinking about it.

If you want to do openers for classes then please learn how the classes function and the math behind their openers and stop misleading people, thank you.

Its clear that you put a lot of work into this and i dont deny that but please do research into the classes first. :/

For anyone thats reading this: Here are several good, widely-accepted openers for Black Mage:

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/592613187245834260/601881264227614730/No_B4_Opener.png

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/592613187245834260/601881351561412608/Double_Sharp_Opener.png

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/592613187245834260/601881623905959936/Sharp_Fire_Opener.png

With the top one dealing the most damage and the ones below dealing lower.

... you have Dragoon breaking a combo in your first opener. Under no circumstances barring dungeons mass pulling should you ever do that on any job, let alone Dragoon which now has a continuing chain thanks to Raiden Thrust. Furthermore, Geirskogul that early messes all raid buffs. Honestly, I could go on at how horrendously inefficient both Dragoon openers are but there isn't a point. The whole thing is just... wrong. Delaying buffs like this will not only lose you casts but they don't line up with anything.

I also want to know why are you theorycrafting on jobs you don't even have unlocked, let alone reached 80 on? What this amounts to is a lot of... nonsense if I'm to be frank. None of these openers are efficient, you have multiple combo breaks and buff alignments are all over the place. No offense, but you really shouldn't be providing opener suggestions without showing you're capable of performing well on each job.