Dragoons: A Rotation Reborn

[xyaie]

Thanks for the damage type info!

Ugh i hate this post limit thing. It seems so random as to how many i get as well

edit to a post that hasnt been posted yet: found it http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...17#post1015217

It sounds like if we want any dialog we need to either find a new forum, or post a theorycrafting type thread on the new player forums

edit:

edited this, wonder if anyone will notice! you can get past the 1000 character limit with an edit, but you cant get past the 10 post per day limit to my knowledge

[Brynmor]

Yea, it's making me miss the EJ forums. I had to trim my first post a lot. I was wondering how you got your EP one so long.

[Ayvar]

Thanks for the damage type info!

Ugh i hate this post limit thing. It seems so random as to how many i get as well

You get around it by editing your post, that's how I made the guide. Just save your full reply in notepad, then post enough characters for the forum to allow you to make a reply, then just edit the post and paste in the rest.

I said as much in my post at the bottom of page 3. Might be some stuff in there you might want to look at if you're updating your OPs. If nothing else just to have multiple people independently confirming information.

Ah! I didn't notice it was the same person. Yeah, I'd already confirmed the absence of the piercing damage buff on DoTs (particularly Fracture) in preparation for the DoT section...which I have now posted. But independent confirmation is always best!

[Silvermink]

Man, this could manage to be more complicated than my enhancement shaman. That was priority-based at the time I left WoW.

[Brynmor]

Man, this could manage to be more complicated than my enhancement shaman. That was priority-based at the time I left WoW.

I mained Enhancement for several years and while Dragoon is best approached with a priority system as well (as most well designed DPS classes are) it is quite a different playstyle. Enhancement used many abilities with (for the most part) varying CDs that would often come off of CD at the same time resulting in having to make a correct spilt decision with high priority procs thrown into the mix to muddy things up even more.

Noticeably, Dragoon has no procs and, ironically when compared to how you'd expect a Lancer or Dragoon to play based on leveling, is a lot of maintaining buffs, debuffs and DoTs. Ayvar's OP is a good example of how your abilities fit together and what should be prioritized but the long list of abilities stringed together is more intimidating on paper than in practice.

[Gilthaen]

I enjoy the "complexity" of our rotation, albeit long by some standards I don't ever find it monotonous because while our 27+ rotation looks good on paper, boss mechanics don't always allow for it to go as planned so that's where player "skill" comes into play... anyone can follow a rotation, but how do you react when a boss does x or y? Sometimes we'll need to stun, peel, kite, ect.. so we won't just sit there going ht>fr>ph>id>dis>ct>tt>vp>ft>ht>fr>ph>tt>vp>ft>id>dis>ct>ect all day long.

[S1nfulGam3r]

Very nice write up good sir. I simply cannot wait to unlock the Dragoon job... ten years from now... ^^ ~Brandon

[Ratm3000]

snip

Can you please post a screenshot of your hotbar.
Thank you

[Ayvar]

Can you please post a screenshot of your hotbar.
Thank you

It's actually on page 3 of the thread, I've added a quick note about that to the guide. Here it is again for those who missed it:

Here are my hotbars, M means mouse key, so in my case M3 is the middle mouse button.

http://imgur.com/iSywWZ5

This keeps your main combos (TT-VT-FT and ID-Dis-CT) near your WASD movement keys, your emergency moves (stuns, avoidance) on your mouse buttons for quick clicking, groups your cooldowns together so at a glance you can see what is coming up, your medium-use abilities on the easier to press Shift+ keys, and the less used abilities on the harder to press Ctrl+ keys. I also find it helps to keep abilities related to each other close together so your fingers don't have to do much thinking. All your AE is on 5 and Shift+5, PS+Jump are right beside each other so you can see if PS is coming up soon so you dont use your Jump, and BFB and IR are beside each other so you can easily see which ones you've used.

[Brynmor]

That said, if you're still early into Lancer/Dragoon and you were expecting something like a Tera-style Berserker melee heavy-hitter you may want to reconsider the class you're playing.

(boo 1,000 character limit)