Dragoons: A Rotation Reborn

[Thendiel]

Hey, everyone. I wanted to chime in on the BiS listings a little bit here. First of all, I don't think that Dervy's non-crafted BiS listings are accurate, since this set that I've listed in my guide, How to Train Your Dragoon, seems to yield superior secondary stats. Secondly, while you would certainly be in amazing shape for Final Coil with his crafted 535-accuracy sets, I think it would be a mistake not to emphasize accuracy in any discussion of BiS. For example, this non-crafted set for 491-accuracy encounters is superior to his crafted 535-accuracy sets in terms of stat weights (see below); additionally, I may have to run more than 535 accuracy for some fights: e.g., I favor 548 accuracy in T12 because of the way my group deals with the bennu phase.

These are my non-crafted BiS listings for different levels of accuracy. I didn't really do anything special to produce them; I just used Ariyala's BiS solver with current stat weights at different levels of minimum accuracy.

In any case, here are a few weightings that I cooked up to flesh out the issue. What I did was ignored Weapon Damage (since the Dreadwyrm Spear is obviously BiS as of this moment--though perhaps not in a few hours) and focused exclusively on the strength and secondary stats gained from gear (since everyone starts with the same base values anyhow, ignoring racial differences). I also multiplied strength values by 1.03 to reflect the party strength buff. Here are the gains I came up with:

My 535 accuracy build: http://ffxiv.ariyala.com/OEMD
+388 str = 399.64
+217 crit = 50.561
+157 det = 51.339
+29 SS = 5.742
GAIN: 507.342 str value

Dervy’s non-crafted 535 accuracy build: http://ffxiv.ariyala.com/OTNT
+388 str = 399.64
+180 crit = 41.49
+175 det = 57.225
+37 SS = 7.326
GAIN: 505.681 str value

Dervy’s non-crafted “recommended” 535-accuracy build: http://ffxiv.ariyala.com/OTNX
+388 str = 399.64
+160 crit = 37.28
+209 det = 68.343
+0 SS = 0
GAIN: 505.263 str value

Dervy’s “absolute best” 535 accuracy build: http://ffxiv.ariyala.com/P9DR
+347 str = 357.41
+270 crit = 62.91
+209 det = 68.343
+132 SS = 26.136
GAIN: 514.799 str value

Dervy’s “well balanced” 535 accuracy build: http://ffxiv.ariyala.com/PAAG
+364 str = 374.92
+243 crit = 56.619
+207 det = 67.689
+70 SS = 13.86
GAIN: 513.088 str value

Dervy’s “best cost” 535 accuracy build: http://ffxiv.ariyala.com/PAF8
+371 str = 382.13
+224 crit = 52.192
+203 det = 66.381
+54 SS = 10.692
GAIN: 511.395 str value

My 491 accuracy build: http://ffxiv.ariyala.com/P8IV
+388 str = 399.64
+231 crit = 53.823
+152 det = 49.704
+62 SS = 12.276
GAIN: 515.433 str value

TL;DR: Dervy's crafted BiS sets will gain you about +4 to +8 strength when compared to non-crafted BiS sets. Also, his non-crafted BiS sets might be slightly inaccurate, unless I'm just messing up my math somehow. Finally, accuracy is an important consideration in general, so keep in mind that Dervy's crafted arrangements are only "pure" BiS for T13 flank accuracy, specifically.