Dragoons: A Rotation Reborn

[Eclips]

I see what you're saying EMX but I can't help but keep in mind that this game was made for a ps3. All of the math / strategies you put out here are good in theory, but I can't see a practical use for this unless you're in a dot heavy group composition. I'll give your strategy a try in the next ifrit extreme I do, but I feel like I'm going to lose a lot of damage / autoattack uptime on nails when I have to move to dot the 3rd nail and go in reverse once I reach the searing wind nails. Does every ph you use tick all the way out? I just can't see the 3rd and 4th nails lasting 18s when the rest of the dps are just assisting them down.

I feel like you're getting confused about why I use ID/DE. The piercing debuff is a moot point as it is still a consistent 400 potency in 2 gcds as you make your way around. In most all of the groups that I've downed ifrit extreme with, (as drg, blm, whm, and pld), the nails only last 2 globals per as long as people are assisting. Sometimes they die even quicker when a BLM is on his game. This gives me about 5 seconds on the first nail, 5 seconds on the next nail, and bam, the group is on the 3rd nail by the 10 second mark. That one dies in 2 gcds, the next in 2 gcds, etc.

Maybe if the group DPS is very low I could see that you would be maximizing dps this way, but when you have 3 other competent DPS in your group, the tab-dotting strategy becomes very ineffective.

[EasymodeX]

I feel like I'm going to lose a lot of damage / autoattack uptime on nails when I have to move to dot the 3rd nail and go in reverse once I reach the searing wind nails.

Takes some getting used to but you should be able to maintain nearly 100% contact. It takes like 2.3s to run between nails. The only tricky part is continuing to use oGCDs like Leg Sweep and Jump while doing that. That can take more timing and is more suitable for the third nail phase.

Does every ph you use tick all the way out? I just can't see the 3rd and 4th nails lasting 18s when the rest of the dps are just assisting them down.

Yes pretty much. I skip the first nail and start DoTing the second one and continue around. The first one probably only ticks for half or 2/3s of the DoT, but that's still 270p, much more than the ~210-227 average.

I feel like you're getting confused about why I use ID/DE.[...] That one dies in 2 gcds, the next in 2 gcds, etc.

In this case you should use the standard TTT combo. If the nail you just used True/Vorpal on is about to die (e.g. wasted Full Thrust damage), then move to the next nail pre-emptively and use FT directly on it. The TTT combo is more efficient than using ID+DE spam across the board unless you "waste" a lot of the FT damage potential.

Maybe if the group DPS is very low I could see that you would be maximizing dps this way, but when you have 3 other competent DPS in your group, the tab-dotting strategy becomes very ineffective.

Have all the DPS tab DOT ^_^.

Actually we had a Bard and SMN both tab-DoT in my first clear.

It's simply efficient. Edit: Back then I was just TTT spamming. FWIW one DPS should maintain direct damage only to make the nails go down at a consistently staggered pace.