FF 5.X Alternative Raid Buff Alignment and Openers

[ReiMakoto]

1. You do realize of course you have to be facing your target for any of those attacks to go off right?

2. You just made my point for me, if they're on cooldown... you can't use them anymore. So you will have to alter your rotation around those missing GCDs. That one mechanic just forced you to use them both and out of order.

You can turn around turning the gcd cooldown of an instant spell and loose absolutely nothing

If you need to kill an add, you transfer doing your rotation onto the add, its not some great mystery lol, if you need to burn an extra rescourse to not die, youve not "lost" that resource, youve just used it somewhere else.

[Oxdarock]

Thought I'd make an update on my progress with organizing my calculations on the potency of these delayed openers. It's coming along and I have a format and everything, but I've been a bit too busy to stop to work on it. ^^; I hope to make it public at least by early January, in which I’ll have four dps classes finished: NIN, RDM, DRG, and BRD. After that, I plan to update it with the rest of the classes little by little. After a bit more research into buff application delay, some openers will be adjusted slightly or have an extra note attached regarding timings.

On that note, some might have picked up on my challenge to the Balance NIN opener somewhere in this and the tank version of this thread. Well, the short answer is: I failed. Spectacularly, lol! Yeah, both the use of Doton, as well as the GCDs and oGCDs within TA, from the Balance opener provide more damage and more of a boost via TA than what I initially came up with. However, now that I know more about how the Balance NIN opener works, I was able to make adjustments and come up with a NIN opener that still fits within the raid buff timings of delayed openers while only falling short of the Balance opener by approximately 5.5 potency in a vacuum (i.e. solo on a striking dummy). So determining which opener does more damage will rely on raid buff alignment.

I will say that I did come up with an adjustment for the Balance NIN opener regarding the Huton and Doton timings. Assuming they haven't been updated and are still 11.5 secs and 7.5secs pre-pull respectively, you can actually wait till about 7-8 secs pre-pull to use Huton and 4 seconds to use Doton (3secs if you can manage it and still use Suiton in time). Here’s why:

Doton works similar to most DoTs in that damage goes out every 3secs, give or take. So if it’s used 7.5 seconds pre-pull, you’ve already lost 2 of the server based ticks (surprisingly, moves like Doton and Salted Earth hit one extra time within the first second after being used, plus the first server tick) and might possibly lose a 3rd if the boss isn’t dragged in quick enough. If used at 3-4 seconds pre-pull, you’re guaranteed at least 6 server based ticks (7 if you’re lucky), while still having enough time to use Hide (which now restores 2 charges of mudra, something I completely overlooked) and prep Suiton before the pull begins. Naturally, since the time you can use Doton pre-pull is shorter, Huton can be use a bit closer to the pull as well in order to possibly earn yourself an extra Aeolian Edge down the line before refreshing with Armor Crush.

So that’s where I am regarding organizing my calculations. Look forward to it and until then, Happy Holidays! \o/

[Vendalwind]

snip

I appreciated reading this post.

Further food for thought on doton at that time. NIN mudras cooldown resets on first mudra use. So although using doton later gives an extra tick or two you are dependent on fight timer losing a raiton (800 potency). Those as much as 3 extra ticks of doton + not having to use an armor crush (also fight time dependent) grants at best (100*3 +20) potency. So its a hard call tho, but the point being if you are going to get that extra raiton it is still better to perform the early doton with the standard opener.

HOWEVER with your delayed NIN opener I think some raiton cast time was lost anyways (not 100% sure){mudra over-capping} because trick is delayed If this is the case it wouldn't alter yours as much since the raiton timer would be locked into the timing of the raid buffs regardless of when the first mudra was cast.

*side note* If you are still intentionally clipping with the pot this is a poor choice. That will always be a dps loss rather than a gain even it if aligns trick somehow exactly where you want it.

[Oxdarock]

Further food for thought on doton at that time. NIN mudras cooldown resets on first mudra use. So although using doton later gives an extra tick or two you are dependent on fight timer losing a raiton (800 potency). Those as much as 3 extra ticks of doton + not having to use an armor crush (also fight time dependent) grants at best (100*3 +20) potency. So its a hard call tho, but the point being if you are going to get that extra raiton it is still better to perform the early doton with the standard opener.

HOWEVER with your delayed NIN opener I think some raiton cast time was lost anyways (not 100% sure){mudra over-capping} because trick is delayed If this is the case it wouldn't alter yours as much since the raiton timer would be locked into the timing of the raid buffs regardless of when the first mudra was cast.

*side note* If you are still intentionally clipping with the pot this is a poor choice. That will always be a dps loss rather than a gain even it if aligns trick somehow exactly where you want it.

I actually thought this at the time when I began testing openers. I realized that by using Huton at 11.5 seconds pre-pull, the recast would start ticking and you could expect mudra to gain a charge around 8secs and 28secs and so on. You could still use Doton later than 7.5 seconds pre-pull though since the timing has no effect on the recast timer and you'd use Hide right after it to gain a charge for Suiton. The only thing that really matter was how close you could use it before the pull while still being able to use Suiton in time (I found 4 seconds pre-pull to be a comfortable place).

What I completely overlooked was that Hide actually gives you 2 charges of mudra, not one (which is funny since I don't recall this fact ever being mentioned by SE. There isn't even a notice that the effect has been slightly adjusted on the job page. ^^; ). This means that, regardless of when Huton and Doton are cast, the recast timer on mudras stops the moment you use Hide (since you're at max charges) and starts up again once you use mudras for Suiton. So you gain a mudra charge around 20secs and so on at that point.

Also, I might have worded it poorly, but you're never going to get the full number of ticks from Doton no matter what you do. The point of using it close to the pull is just so that you don't lose as many. Using it 3-4 seconds guarantees that you at least get six ticks, with the 7th being dependent on how fast the boss is dragged into Doton vs the server tick. The extra Aeolian edge due to later Huton cast is a possibility, but is something that's can only be figured out by playing the class a lot (I admittedly stopped after the opener). And like you said, it's only 20+ potency, which despite being a gain, is still pretty minor.

And yeah, the current NIN opener that I initially wrote is not optimal. I've made the adjustments already and will update them once I've presented my calculations in how the opener interacts with other raid buffs (and no, it no longer using the pot to intentionally clip).