Questions for Dragoon Mains

[ClickOnce]

1) Is there a priority dps list when it comes to Dragon Sight? Such as, what class(es) gain the most from Dragoon Sight if I was in an 8 man party.

2) How many of you actually use True North? At level 77 on Dragoon, I don't ever recall using it once (not even on any hotbars) since I just follow the positional requirements manually.

3) Is getting 3 Nastronds, consistently in a fight very common? Since the Life of the Dragon gauge maxes out at 30, and Nastrond has a 10 second cd, I feel like getting 2 Nastronds in each Life of the Dragon is what's most common. Unless I am wrong.

4) Is it smart or actually a good idea to be in the eye stage where using Geirskgoul puts you into Life of the Dragon before a dungeon boss fight? I do this in dungeons since I will open with this rotation (assuming everyone skips cutscence) in this order from left to right:

* True Thrust > Disembowel > Blood of the Dragon (refill gauge) > Dragon Sight Macro > Battle Litany > Lance Charge > Chaos Trust > Wheeling Trust > Geirskgoul > Life Surge > Nastrond > Dragonfire Dive

Unless that's not what I'm supposed to be doing as an opener for boss fights.

5) Is strength and critical hit the two main priority stats for Dragoon? Since from what I looked up online, I found str and critical chance but from the stats list there's no critical chance stat listed.

Finally, 6) Is it normal to save Elusive Jump and Spineshatter Dive. I don't include them in my opener or dps rotations, but I use Elusive Jump whenever I need to quickly get out of some AoE, then spineshatter for approach on boss fights. I do that since it helps with survivablity.

Thanks to anyone who answers my questions or has any tips/advice!

[Brightamethyst]

1 - In a 4-man, give Dragon Sight to the other DPS (unless it's a ranged who likes standing too far away, in which case give it to the tank.) In an 8-man you give it to the highest DPS who will stay in range the whole time. That's usually guesswork in random group though.

2 - True North is situational and relies a lot on knowing the fight really well. It's something you plan to use in advance because you know a mechanic is coming, not something you use on CD on in a panic (see also, Arm's Length.)

4 - It doesn't really matter. In dungeons everything is random and in raid's trials you go into bosses with no resources stored anyway. That said, there are a few issues with that rotation in general. First, try not to use so many CDs in a row like that. Spread them out so you don't clip the GCD. Second, Life Surge only affects Weaponskills. It has no affect on Abilities like Nastrond and Dragonfire Dive. You should be using it for Full Thrust since that's the highest potency Weaponskill you have.

5 - You can't see what the numbers on the stats mean in this game. If you look at your stats you can see how much crit you have but there's no way of knowing what your actual chance to crit is. You have to check outside resources for that.

6 - Spineshatter should generally be used on cooldown. It's almost always more useful as free damage than as a movement tool. That's a bonus, not it's main selling point. Elusive is more situational. It's nice for getting out of AoEs quick (assuming you don't jump off a cliff or into a death wall) but it can also be used to quickly get back into a fight. Just turn around before using it and you'll jump 'forward' instead of back.

[Imragarn]

Hi !

1) I don't know if you can really have a priority if you are with random player you don't know, when i do it i try to found the one with the best gear and i link with him. Or you can just link to the other Melee if you have one

2) I don't know how many time i use it tonight but in leveling dungeon it's not really usefull for what i remember.

3) Level 78 you have some new passive that will give you 3 nastrond every time.

4) I don't think it matter in a dungeon. But your rotation look... strange i think. Something like that will be better i assume
Blood Before the pull => True Thrust => Dragon sight => Disembowel => Litany => Lance charge => Chaos Thrust => High Jump => Wheeling Thrust => Spineshatter => Fang and Claw => Geirskokul => Mirage Dive => Raiden Thrust => Dragonfire Dive => Vorpal Thrust => Life surge => Full Thrust

5) in game % ? nope. But strenght and crit is the main stats yes.

6) Save Elusive ? Yes, it's a "fast escape" card. But Spineshatter do some nice damage, you want tu use it when you can, or keep it if you know you will be push in 3 ou 4 sec

(My apologies english is not my native language)

[ClickOnce]

For question 3), what would a better rotation look like to you? Such as using Life Surge for full thrust, and including more skills that don't stop the GCD combo rotation. Exp: Would be weaving in spineshatter as you said it's better to get the damage from it.

As for the True North, a useful situation I could use it would be if I know the boss is going to do an AoE attack that my positional would cause me to get hit by, I could True North instead to keep doing damage, get the positional benefit, and not get hit by unneeded damage. If that makes sense.

[Brightamethyst]

For question 3), what would a better rotation look like to you? Such as using Life Surge for full thrust, and including more skills that don't stop the GCD combo rotation. Exp: Would be weaving in spineshatter as you said it's better to get the damage from it.

You can fit at most two oGCDs in a row without clipping the GCD. So instead of using BotD > Dragon Sight > Litany > Lance Charge all in a row like that you'd spread them out in between two or three other weaponskills.

Remember though, when people out here in internet land talk about ideal rotations its almost always referring to raid boss scenarios. Normal dungeons are a lot more messy and unpredictable in that respect because you don't always know what will or won't be on CD or how many eyes you'll have when you get to a boss room. Ideal raid openers mean nothing in situations like that.

As for the True North, a useful situation I could use it would be if I know the boss is going to do an AoE attack that my positional would cause me to get hit by, I could True North instead to keep doing damage, get the positional benefit, and not get hit by unneeded damage. If that makes sense.

Exactly. If you know a 'stand in a specific place' mechanic is coming then you can use True North to not miss any positionals during that time.

[Rongway]

1) Is there a priority dps list when it comes to Dragon Sight? Such as, what class(es) gain the most from Dragoon Sight if I was in an 8 man party.

With the removal of enmity management in Shadowbringers, the aggro list is now an accurate representation of damage output against a single target. Keep an eye out for whoever is consistently #2 on the enmity list after the tank, and buff them. if two DDs are going back and forth between #2 and #3, prefer another melee DD over a ranger over a caster, because another melee DD will be less likely to break the tether by parking too far away.

[Nemekh]

Not a DRG main but I was curious about Dragonsight so I asked one of the fellow DRG mentors at the balance. At first he said "NIN > DNC > cry"

But going further from that - MCH/BLM/RDM can be alright, MNK can sometimes have good windows for it but not as much their sustained damage. SAMs can be really good, SMN is unfortunately one of the worst because it doesn't apply to pets but we can sometimes be a good partner for it. I'm actually not sure about to fellow DRGs which could happen!

Pragmatically - use it on whoever isn't going to run off to Narnia and is close enough to you to keep it active, consider also who is visibly better geared as it means they're likely to be packing the damage. In dungeons you have just the one DPS partner who should always be nearby but in 8 mans it can depend.

[Karshan]

2) How many of you actually use True North? At level 77 on Dragoon, I don't ever recall using it once (not even on any hotbars) since I just follow the positional requirements manually.

Some Ex / Savage fights will require, by their mechanics, that you stay at a specific place for a greater amount of time than a GCD. To avoid losing Raiden or missing positionnals, those moments ar when you use True North. Other than that, if your tank is not a dick, yeah you can just move naturally like you do and manage positionals with ease.

3) Is getting 3 Nastronds, consistently in a fight very common? Since the Life of the Dragon gauge maxes out at 30, and Nastrond has a 10 second cd, I feel like getting 2 Nastronds in each Life of the Dragon is what's most common. Unless I am wrong.

Huh, what ? I might have misunderstood. If you use Nastrond at, say 25 seconds remaining, you can use it again at 15 and then 5, so actually there should never be a LotD phase without 3 Nastronds ?

[ClickOnce]

Oh, so I should always do 3 Nastronds for each LotD phase? That makes more sense. Also thank you for the advice!

[Renkei]

1: The Dps with the best gear or who has the highest single hitting single attack abilities. Samurai, Blackmage, Etc, Hard Hitters with no raid utility usually.


2. True north is very important, as there are some fights you absolutely have to use it, having 60% of your attacks being positional attacks the penalty can be extremely high for missing them, finding where you use true north is very important to optimizing your damage output.


3. You should be getting 3 Nastronds every time you enter life of the dragon, But the first Life of the Dragon Nastrond rotation should be delayed in order to realign your burst rotation with it, Creating a pattern of, 6, 3, 6, 3, 3 instead of the standard, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3. You do so by using Geir Before Dive in case you are wondering, the only time you have to adjust this timing is inbetween the double burst which you switch dive with Geir to active Life, while holding your Dive.


4. Ideally you want to use Eye as soon as its available. with the technique listed above its possible to slightly manipulate the timings in order to get favorable placements per fight, you can either use the 3,3,3,3,3,3 rotation, or the 6,3,6,3,3 rotation.

5. Weapon Damage Strength and Critical Hit are the most important, you want to avoid skill-speed at all costs, as it adds damage loss to your rotation unless you have an extremely high amount of it, it still under-performs and starts to clip your rotation ad odd hundredth break points.


6. I Reccomend using Elusive jump to engage a target in some fights, I also recommend using it as a re-engage instead of a disengage, i wouldn't save spine-shatter dive for it but if delaying Spine-shatter by 3 seconds give you more up time then it can be worth it. I tend to use Elusive jump to get out of Radial Close range attacks that the bosses use (when you have to move out) but i manually move out while getting a GCD and jump back in with elusive jump (decreases the chance of off map accidents as well)