Dragoons: A Rotation Reborn

[Viridiana]

Hate to interrupt your discussion; just wanted to get some opinions.
I'm on my alex stage now and originally may have gone crit/det, but since we're moving into the expansion and chances are the Zeta weapons will more than likely not receive further upgrades, I'm thinking I'd rather build a decent 50-60 leveling weapon. Meaning I'd probably want some accuracy on there.

I was wondering if anyone was doing something similar and what kind of spread they were considering. The idea is to also keep it somewhat cheap since there is no sense in breaking the bank on it now with heavensward adding new relics.

I doubt you'll need accuracy for leveling. The only things you need accuracy for are things above your level, which you don't really encounter while leveling (unless this changes for the xpac).

[HeavensSword]

I doubt you'll need accuracy for leveling. The only things you need accuracy for are things above your level, which you don't really encounter while leveling (unless this changes for the xpac).

That's true, I guess I was reverting into the FFXI mentality. I'm sure leveling will include the new story, but I wonder if they plan on changing it up a bit, or if it'll just be more FATEs, hests, etc.

[Sleigh]

like it dies so fast with 3 dps that I can't imagine that you'd need to do more than 2 doomspikes or something before it dies with 4 dps

Yep, it's not long for the world once the actual AoE starts with 3 or 4 DPS. Main reason I specified that is because you can really feed people DPS in that phase if you wished, and since it wouldn't be a real clear time loss either way a group could do it if they so chose. Bahamut DPS + wyvern DPS definitely most important part of the fight.

Only in it for fair results!

[ColdestHeaven]

Cleared T13 tonight, top dps with 486. Not much considering my gear (i129, only missing T11 ring), but for now I'll settle with this. It's been more than one year of reading this topic, receiving tips whenever I asked (getting some even when I didn't) and understanding the in and outs of this job. This was possible because of this thread and your posts. Thank y'all.

[Arthuro-Ray]

I am so jelly of you guys for being on thoses super fast runs, i really would like to see how high my dps would be with a quick clear.

[Sleigh]

I am so jelly of you guys for being on thoses super fast runs, i really would like to see how high my dps would be with a quick clear.

More boring than you might think. Someone dies at all in a way that impacts the clear, 9 times out of 10 we'll insta-run into the wall and wait up to 5 minutes for CDs and pots. Over, and over, and over. Wipe 30s into the pull for some reason? Get a music video ready, cause you're not playing for a few minutes minimum.

[Thendiel]

I personally don't like How To Train Your Dragoons oGDC rotation as it's heavily latency influenced. EU players cannot afford to continuously double-pop oGDCs continuously in the opener, especially has BFB has a longer skill/ability/animation lock.


Also, download WTFast if you're a PC user. No reason why you should not be using it. It's a free download and has an unlimited free trial. I play with 96-104ms constantly. Make sure you're connecting to MTL2 sever, as that has the lowest ping + lag spikes I've noticed.

Now. Can you get 9GDCs in a Blood For Blood? If yes, you should be using a delayed BFB before CT (to ensure you can hit 9GDCs). My video here should aid you somewhat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfjU6hJC_II. If this is the case, then your opening rotation, as an EU player should be something like:

HT - (IR + PS) - ID - (X-POT) - DI - (Delayed BFB) - CT - (JUMP) - PH - (LegS) - TT - (SSD) - VP - (LS) - FT (DFD).

This is also my opener and it allows for minimal GDC clipping, whilst still allowing to maximise your opening as much as possible.

If you cannot get 9GDCs in a Blood for Blood, then you need to use it before Impulse Drive, so it would be something like:

HT - (BFB) - ID - (X-POT) - DI - (IR + PS) - CT - (JUMP) - PH - (LegS) - TT - (SSD) - VP - (LS) - FT (DFD) = Or switch the X-POT around with the IR + PS.

IR + PS both have very low animation locks (or w/e the terminology is), so you can easily double stack these two, even with a high latency.

First off, my apologies to the community's EU players and high-latency players. I hadn't realized that connection speed would have such an extreme impact on doubling up off-GCDs.

Second, my own personal experience is that I have no difficulty fitting Power Surge next to Blood for Blood between GCDs, even at fairly extreme levels of Skill Speed. I'm at about 40ms and play in NA. If that's something that people are having difficulty with, then... yeah... my opener becomes problematic, I admit.

That said, I'm pretty convinced that it's ideal if you can manage to pull it off. The main advantage that I believe it has over Dervy's is that it buffs DFD with Internal Release along with everything else (BFB, potion, HT, Dis), whereas Dervy's approach buffs Leg Sweep rather than DFD with IR. Some cursory math of mine, assuming a latent crit rate of 25%, suggests that my opener provides a +12 potency bonus averaging out across runs by comparison. Even if I were to use an opener closer to Dervy's (meaning the first one he lists here), it seems to me that it would be better to swap DFD with Leg Sweep for that reason. But my opener also packs Leg Sweep earlier into the opener while still getting a second BFB-buffed Leg Sweep at about the same time that Dervy's method would. I believe this is another advantage.

There might well be something I'm missing, though... some long-term advantage derived from Dervy's approach, perhaps? I'm not very adept at models, either, so I don't know how to use them to test the approaches against each other, what with the doubling up on off-GCDs.

In any event, it seems like we're dealing with very small differences.

For the record, I definitely love Dervy's opener for people who can't hit 9 BFB-buffed GCDs. I'll have to update HTTYD to include it, since Skill Speed (like latency) has a big impact on what the optimum opener will be.

[Dervy]

And this is why I don't believe in the 0.5s rule for oCDs. If they all had a 0.5s animation lock/delay, why is it I can do PS + IR with no GDC clipping even with higher latency, but struggle to do so with PS + BFB? Skills clearly have their own animation lock/delay.

There isn't really a "Long-term advantage" either (at least, not that I've noticed). Having said that, if I'm not using an X-Pot, I usually put a Legsweep in its place so I can get 1 unbuffed and 1 buffed LS before my BFB runs out.

Ages ago, I used to do my opener so IR would be used before DI, thus allowing your DFD to be buffed by Internal Release as well, but it's kind of hard to fit it all into a perfect sequence without clipping, especially as I'm doing 9GDC BFBs. I'm always tweaking and messing around with my opener. Who knows? It might change again next week! Haha

[SunnyHirose]

IR's animation is slightly longer than BfB's, however :P

[Dervy]

;_;..... I hate skill animation.

In other news, 2-3 weeks more until we get our new Benchmark Hopefully it there's some lvl 50-60 skills we can data-mine heuheuheu. Anyone got any interesting idea's they could do to improve our beloved Spear wielding Pole Dancer?