The Single-Target Rotation
(A.) The Short Version
HT —> ID —> Dis —> CT —> Phleb —> TT —> VT —> FT —> HT —> TT —> VT —> FT —> Phleb —> ID —> Dis —> CT —> HT —> TT —> VT —> FT —> Phleb —> TT —> VT —> FT —> (repeat)
Hit positionals to gain extra potency (HT on the flank, CT on the rear) and refresh TP with Invigorate when your bar reaches just under 500.
Here is a video I created for reference.
(B.) The Basics
When attacking a single target that takes a long time to die, there is an ideal order in which to apply your abilities. It might be thought of as a priority order. Activating your Heavy Thrust status, which adds an incredible +15% bonus to all damage for the next 20 seconds, is your first priority. Landing the Impulse Drive-Disembowel-Chaos Thrust combo is your second priority, since Disembowel makes your targeted enemy 10% weaker to piercing (DRG and BRD) damage for the next 30 seconds, and since Chaos Thrust is your single most powerful ability, weighing in at a full 600 potency across 30 seconds. Applying Phlebotomize is your last priority, since it’s also very strong, delivering 350 potency across 18 seconds.
Once all these core abilities are active, your goal is to refresh each one right before it runs out while filling downtime with the weakish True Thrust-Vorpal Thrust-Full Thrust combo. In short....
maintaining Heavy Thrust > maintaining Disembowel/Chaos Thrust > maintaining Phlebotomize > using True Thrust-Vorpal Thrust-Full Thrust.
When we follow our priorities and time everything perfectly, the dragoon rotation becomes:
Heavy Thrust —> Impulse Drive —> Disembowel —> Chaos Thrust —> Phlebotomize —> True Thrust —> Vorpal Thrust —> Full Thrust —> Heavy Thrust —> True Thrust —> Vorpal Thrust —> Full Thrust —> Phlebotomize —> Impulse Drive —> Disembowel —> Chaos Thrust —> Heavy Thrust —> True Thrust —> Vorpal Thrust —> Full Thrust —> Phlebotomize —> True Thrust —> Vorpal Thrust —> Full Thrust —> (repeat)
See here, here, or here for visual reference.
The rotation might look a little complex when laid out end-to-end, but it actually has a pretty simple rhythm to it. Think of it this way:
Heavy Thrust —> 1-2-3 combo —> Phlebotomize —> 1-2-3 combo —> Heavy Thrust —> 1-2-3 combo —> Phlebotomize —> 1-2-3 combo —> Heavy Thrust —> 1-2-3 combo —> Phlebotomize —> 1-2-3 combo
...repeated infinitely, such that your first 1-2-3 combo, and every third one after that (when Dis and CT are about to wear off), consists of Impulse Drive-Disembowel-Chaos Thrust. That said, all this will probably take a little getting used to if you’re new to the job. I would recommend practicing on a training dummy at Summerford Farms and organizing your HUD so that your character’s status effects and the enemy’s status effects are close to each other visually—thus allowing you to monitor the timings of Heavy Thrust, Disembowel, Chaos Thrust, and Phlebotomize all at once. As this rotation becomes more intuitive for you, you’ll make fewer mistakes, and soon enough you’ll find yourself dishing out insane amounts of damage.
Note that a “positional” refers to an attack that requires you to hit a specific part of the enemy in order to obtain some benefit. Hitting your positionals whenever possible as a dragoon is crucial. Specifically, the Heavy Thrust attack gains an extra 70 potency when used on an enemy’s flank, while Chaos Thrust gains an extra 50 initial potency when used on an enemy’s rear.
Finally, keep in mind that TP management is essential for continuous boss fights. You should always watch your TP bar closely, and pop Invigorate when it reaches the 450-500 range. After that, Invigorate should always be used the moment it becomes available. For extremely long and continuous fights, you’ll eventually need your party members to assist you with special abilities to keep from running out of TP (specifically, BRD’s Army’s Paeon and NIN’s Goad), even if you are managing Invigorate perfectly.
(C.) Details and Explanations
➤ Is this “the” single-target rotation for certain? Yes. The case is absolutely closed on this one. For a persistent, individual target with a large amount of health, this sequence of abilities will produce the highest quantity of damage possible for a dragoon.
➤ Why is this the rotation? The general idea behind this order of abilities is to maximize the uptime of your DoTs (CT and Phleb), your buff (HT), and your debuff (Dis), without ever applying them prematurely. If, for example, I were to accidentally use Phlebotomize with 9 seconds remaining on my last Phlebotomize application—i.e., if I “clip” the old Phlebotomize—this would mean that I’m using an attack with low initial potency (170) far sooner than I need to. Or if, say, I were to use the True Thrust-Vorpal Thrust-Full Thrust combo without my Heavy Thrust buff being active, I’d be losing out on a whopping (150 + 200 + 360) x 0.15 x 1.10 = 117.15 added potency that those attacks would have delivered. We want to avoid both clipping and downtime, and have everything sync up nicely, such that each skill gets reapplied when its predecessor has about one second or less remaining.
Meanwhile, the extra time between your applications of DoTs, buff, and debuff will be filled with your True Thrust-Vorpal Thrust-Full Thrust combo, which is relatively weak, reaching an average of (150 + 200 + 360) / 3 = 236.7 potency per hit, as compared to an average of (180 + 220 + 600) / 3 = 333.3 potency per hit for Impulse Drive-Disembowel-Chaos Thrust and 170 + (30 x 6) = 350 potency for an individual Phlebotomize.
➤ How strong is this rotation, exactly? If we consider the 24 attacks in the rotation, multiply all initial hits by x 1.15 x 1.10 (I’m assuming that we’re mid-rotation, so I’m not factoring in the delayed HT and Dis applications of the opener), multiply all DoT ticks by 1.15, and then divide by 24, we end up with:
((170 x 1.15 x 1.10) x 3) + (((180 + 220 + 250) x 1.15 x 1.10) x 2) + ((350 x 1.15) x 2) + ((170 x 1.15 x 1.10) x 3) + ((180 x 1.15) x 3) + (((150 + 200 + 360) x 1.15 x 1.10) x 4) = 7953.4 potency
7953.4 potency / 24 GCDs = 331.39 potency per hit
That 331.39 figure will be important for many of the theoretical considerations we’ll deal with throughout this guide, since it acts as a baseline against which we can compare our actions, such as AoE rotations, unorthodox attacks like Piercing Talon, using gap-closers vs. walking, etc. Please note that this is technically just an estimate: it doesn’t account for off-GCDs like Blood for Blood and Jump, nor does it account for critical hits or higher levels of Skill Speed. Still, most of the decisions we compare it against will also use the same off-GCDs and the same levels of Skill Speed/Critical Hit Rate (i.e., yours), so 331.39 should still be a very useful number.
➤ Why use Phlebotomize after Impulse Drive-Disembowel-Chaos Thrust, rather than before? This approach grants the Disembowel debuff of +10% to piercing damage to Phlebotomize’s initial hit (although not to its damage over time) during your opener. In other words, that 170 potency that you get from Phlebotomize right away will be boosted by both Heavy Thrust and Disembowel in addition to Blood for Blood, upping it to a whopping 170 x 1.15 x 1.30 x 1.10 = 279.57 potency, rather than the mere 170 x 1.15 x 1.30 = 254.15 potency it would deliver with HT and BFB but without Disembowel. We receive a net gain of 25.42 potency (or, 25.42 x 1.5 = 38.13 in the event of a critical hit) to our opener.
Another advantage of this approach is that, for some reason, it makes it much easier to slightly clip your applications of Heavy Thrust and Disembowel throughout the rotation, which is a good thing (more on that below). At low Skill Speeds, slight clipping is outright impossible to achieve in a rotation that begins with HT-Phleb-ID-Dis-CT.
Finally, using Phlebotomize after your ID-Dis-CT combo enables you to execute a much more powerful opener, such that your first Chaos Thrust and your first Phlebotomize are both buffed by Internal Release, Blood for Blood, and a potion of strength.
➤ What if I mess the rotation up? If you accidentally begin using the wrong 1-2-3 combo (Impulse Drive-Disembowel-Chaos Thrust instead of True Thrust-Vorpal Thrust-Full Thrust or vice versa), just stick with it. Breaking a combo is almost always a bad idea; it will cause you to miss out on a lot of potency from the remaining attacks, even if those attacks weren’t 100% ideal for your rotation.
If you mess up your rotation in some other way—for example, by using Phlebotomize when you should have used Heavy Thrust—just keep your priority order in mind when deciding what to do next (maintaining Heavy Thrust > maintaining Disembowel/Chaos Thrust > maintaining Phlebotomize > using True Thrust-Vorpal Thrust-Full Thrust).
➤ When are positional bonuses determined, precisely? The potency bonus for any positional is determined by your relationship to the enemy at the instant you click your skill—not when the animation is completed. You’ll find that you can often exploit this fact and sneak in a positional hit before an enemy moves or uses an AoE attack. That said, positional bonuses aren’t worth dying for; you still get your Heavy Thrust buff and your Chaos Thrust DoT ticks if you land either of these attacks on the wrong part of the enemy. Play it safe if you’re worried that you might eat an avoidable AoE and die.
➤ Why is TP management so important? For continuous fights like Shiva EX, T8, T10, and T11, a lack of careful TP management can leave you sitting on your thumbs, waiting an extra 1-3 seconds for each GCD. This ruins your rotation and represents a tremendous damage loss. Delaying your first Invigorate by even a little extra—letting your TP drop to, say, 350 before using it—can leave you dry very early on in an encounter, forcing you to beg for a premature Army’s Paeon (a party-wide, TP-regenerating BRD ability) or Goad (a single-target, TP-generating NIN ability). This is particularly disadvantageous for the party if you need an early Army’s Paeon, since that skill reduces your bard’s damage by 20% while active.
In the event that you do run out of TP during a fight, and you cannot get an Army’s Paeon or Goad, I would recommend removing Phlebotomize from your rotation as a way of keeping yourself a little bit more above water. Also, if you are using Invigorate properly, and your group’s Bard and/or Ninja refuses to assist you with Army’s Paeon/Goad on a regular basis, they are legitimately hindering your group’s DPS. TP depletion might not be the end of the world in emergency situations (e.g., if a healer dies and an unexpected Mage’s Ballad is needed from the bard), but your damage will absolutely plummet if you’re out of TP for any sustained length of time.
➤ Uptime is king! If you want to get the most out of DRG, it’s essential to remain on the enemy at all times, hitting the GCDs in your rotation the instant they become available. Every fraction of a second that you lose beyond that 2.5-seconds-or-less GCD timer represents lost DPS to the tune of at least 331.39 potency / 2.5 seconds = 132.56 potency per second.
➤ How do Heavy Thrust and Disembowel work, precisely? The Heavy Thrust buff provides a 15% damage boost to every ability you use while it is active. For example, True Thrust will be buffed from 150 potency to 150 x 1.15 = 172.5 potency, Vorpal Thrust will be buffed from 200 potency to 200 x 1.15 = 230 potency, and Full Thrust will be buffed from 360 potency to 360 x 1.15 = 414 potency.
The Disembowel debuff, on the other hand, works a little differently. First, it operates only on the enemy you apply it to, making that specific foe take 10% more damage from “piercing” attacks, referring to attacks (including auto-attacks) by dragoons and bards. Second, it only affects initial hits, rather than damage over time. This is because initial hits are considered piercing damage, whereas DoT ticks count as “physical” damage. For example, landing Phlebotomize on an enemy afflicted with Disembowel will boost the initial 170 potency of the original attack by 10% to 170 x 1.10 = 187 potency, without at all affecting the subsequent DoT damage of 30 potency every 3 seconds over 18 seconds = 180. This distinguishes Disembowel from some other debuffs, such as Foe’s Requiem, which buffs the initial hits and DoTs alike of casters.
Finally, it’s worth noting that the percentage boost from Disembowel is not simply added to the percentage boost from Heavy Thrust, but rather, acts as a multiplier to any attack’s HT-buffed 115% damage. For example, the 200 potency of an in-combo Vorpal Thrust will be increased by 15% by Heavy Thrust, and then that resulting value will be increased by 10% by Disembowel, for an end result of (200 x 1.15) x 1.10 = 253 potency. This is not the same as a raw 10% + 15% = 25% damage increase, which would have given us 200 x 1.25 = 250 potency. In short, the bonuses from any stacked buffs/debuffs are applied multiplicatively, rather than additively.
Technically, therefore, Heavy Thrust and Disembowel work together to grant dragoons an impressive 26.5% damage increase to all initial hits.
➤ What if I have to step away from the battle for a mechanic? Or what if I have to use Limit Break? I often find that, when I need to step away from a boss for a few seconds to deal with some mechanic, it makes sense to simply omit one of the 1-2-3 combos from my rotation and then refresh Heavy Thrust or Phlebotomize (whichever one is closest to falling off) as I return. In other words, I might have a rotation that looks like:
Heavy Thrust —> ID-Dis-CT —> Phlebotomize —> Oh, crap; mechanics! Piercing Talon —> Piercing Talon —> Piercing Talon -(return to enemy)-> Heavy Thrust —> TT-VT-FT —> Phlebotomize —> etc.
This also works nicely for level 2 and level 3 Limit Breaks. Something along the lines of the following...
Heavy Thrust —> ID-Dis-CT —> Phlebotomize —> Limit Break —> Heavy Thrust —> TT-VT-FT —> Phlebotomize —> etc.
...is ideal for many fights, since it allows me to maintain HT, Dis, CT, and Phleb quite seamlessly both before and after LB. In other words, the best moment for a Limit Break will be right in the space of your rotation where you’d normally be using the True Thrust-Vorpal Thrust-Full Thrust combo.
That said, you sometimes can’t afford to wait. If you have to interrupt a combo or lose your Heavy Thrust buff in order to land LB at the right moment, don’t hesitate—do it!
➤ Do I really have to be the one to use Limit Break? For most fights, yes. The damage dealt by LB—whether level 1, level 2, or level 3—will surpass your single-target DPS for that cast time by a very, very large margin. Moreover, since a core mechanic for monks is that they must maintain Greased Lightning (a buff that requires constant use of their GCDs to keep active), DRG is by far the most logical choice for using melee LB in any party featuring one dragoon and one monk. (A ninja, on the other hand, should be an equally viable candidate for melee LB compared to a dragoon.)
Don’t think of Limit Break as a burden on your mad deeps; instead, think of it as a core gameplay responsibility of being a dragoon.
➤ Should I modify my rotation if a boss enemy is going to die within the next 10 seconds or so? Ideally, yes. It’s OK to continue with your regular rotation as an enemy nears death; however, if you want to squeeze every last ounce of damage possible out of your DRG, you may have to change things up. Pumping out an extra 20-50 potency could mean that the enemy dies a full GCD sooner, which could potentially make the difference between a clear and a wipe.
Keep in mind that all of this assumes that (1) you aren’t in the middle of a combo (TT-VT-FT or ID-Dis-CT) already, since you virtually always want to continue any combo that you have started; and, (2) you are already in the middle of executing your rotation correctly on the boss as its health begins to get low.
The simple breakdown is:
1 GCD: ID
2 GCDs: ID-Dis
3 GCDs: TT-VT-FT
4 GCDs: refresh HT or Phleb—whichever is about to fall off—and then use TT-VT-FT
When we reach 5 GCD hits or more, the math involved becomes too complex for there to be any one recommendation, so use your best judgment
To modify your rotation along these lines, you’ll have to get a good intuitive sense for how close an enemy is to death. This can take some practice to achieve, and, even then, you’ll still make mistakes from time to time.
Now, for those who are interested in the math, let’s break down our options in greater detail based on the number of GCDs remaining before the enemy’s death and the point you are at in your rotation.
2 GCDs (HT and Dis don’t alter our decision):
Use: ID-Dis = 180 + 220 = 400 potency
Don’t use: Phleb —> ID
170 + 30 + 180 = 380 potency
Don’t use: TT-VT = 150 + 200 = 350 potency
3 GCDs (HT and Dis don’t alter our decision):
Use: TT-VT-FT = 150 + 200 + 360 = 710 potency
Don’t use: ID-Dis-CT = 180 + 220 + 250 = 650 potency
4 GCDs (HT is active and Phleb is about to fall off):
Use: Phleb —> TT-VT-FT
((170 + 30 + 30 (possibly + 30 extra depending on tick timing) + 150 + 200 + 360) x 1.15) x 1.10 (possibly minus (360 x 1.15) x 0.10 = 41.4 potency if Disembowel drops off before Full Thrust) = 1147.7 potency to 1227.05 potency
Don’t use: Phleb —> ID-Dis-CT
(((170 + 180 + 220 + 250) x 1.15) x 1.10) + (2 to 3 ticks of 30) x 1.15) = 1106.3 potency to 1140.8 potency
Don’t use: TT-VT-FT —> ID
((150 + 200 + 360 + 180) x 1.15) x 1.10 (possibly minus (180 x 1.15) x 0.10 = 20.7 if Disembowel drops off before Impulse Drive) = 1105.15 to 1125.85 potency
4 GCDs (HT is just about to fall off and Phleb is active):
Use: HT —> TT-VT-FT
((170 + 150 + 200 + 360) x 1.15) x 1.10 (possibly minus (360 x 1.15) x 0.10 = 41.4 potency if Disembowel drops off before Full Thrust) = 1071.8 to 1113.2 potency
Don’t use: HT —> ID-Dis-CT
((170 + 180 + 220 + 250) x 1.15) x 1.10 = 1037.3 potency
Don’t use: Phleb —> TT-VT-FT
((170 x 1.15) x 1.10) + ((150 +200 + 360) x 1.10) (possibly plus 30 x 1.15 extra depending on tick timing; here, we would be clipping our old Phlebotomize, so we couldn’t gain more than one net tick) (possibly minus 360 x 0.10 = 36 potency if Disembowel drops off before Full Thrust) = 960.05 to 1030.55 potency
I’ll conclude by briefly mentioning that things get substantially more complex when you reach 5 GCDs. At this point, Heavy Thrust, Disembowel, Chaos Thrust, and Phlebotomize could all be falling off (or not falling off) at different moments, and we encounter a much greater number of possibilities. You’ll simply have to use your best judgment.
➤ What if I’ve just started attacking a single enemy that has a small amount of health? The math for this situation is a bit more straightforward, since we know that neither Disembowel nor Phlebotomize will be active on our target as we begin. On the other hand, there may be some variation with the Heavy Thrust buff. For the sake of simplicity, we will assume that your Heavy Thrust status is not active when you begin DPSing your opponent here. Here’s what you should do based on the number of GCDs remaining before the enemy’s death:
1 GCD: ID
2 GCDs: ID-Dis
3 GCDs: TT-VT-FT
4 GCDs: HT —> TT-VT-FT
5 GCDs: HT —> Phleb —> TT-VT-FT
6 GCDs: ID-Dis-CT —> TT-VT-FT
7 GCDs: HT —> ID-Dis-CT —> TT-VT-FT
8 GCDs: HT —> Phleb —> ID-Dis-CT —> TT-VT-FT
Most of these choices are fairly intuitive, so I won’t dissect things too thoroughly. The most complex situation here is when our enemy has 6 GCDs to live. I will briefly walk through a few 6-GCD approaches to illustrate the logic behind my advice:
Use: ID-Dis-CT —> TT-VT-FT
180 + 220 + (250 x 1.10) + (2 to 3 ticks of 35) + ((150 + 200 + 360) x 1.10) = 1526 to 1561 potency
Don’t use: HT —> ID-Dis —> TT-VT-FT
170 + ((180 + 220) x 1.15) + ((150 + 200 + 360) x 1.15 x 1.10) = 1528.15 potency
Don’t use: HT —> Ph —> TT-VT-FT —> ID
170 + (170 x 1.15) + (3 to 4 ticks of 30 x 1.15) + ((150 + 200 + 360 + 180) x 1.15) = 1492.5 to 1527 potency
Don’t use: HT —> Ph —> Fracture —> TT-VT-FT
170 + (170 x 1.15) + (3 to 4 ticks of 30 x 1.15) + (100 x 1.15) + (2 to 3 ticks of 20 x 1.15) + ((150 + 200 + 360) x 1.15) = 1446.5 to 1504 potency
Don’t use: HT —> Ph —> ID-Dis-CT —> ID
170 + (170 x 1.15) + (3 to 4 ticks of 30 x 1.15) + ((180 + 220) x 1.15) + (250 x 1.15 x 1.10) + (1 tick of 35 x 1.15) + (180 x 1.15 x 1.10) = 365.5 + 103.5-to-138 + 460 + 316.75 + 40.25 + 227.7 = 1513.7 to 1548.2 potency
➤ How am I supposed to interpret the potency of a DoT? All DoTs in FFXIV apply their potency to the enemy every 3 seconds, or what is referred to as a “tick.” Chaos Thrust and Phlebotomize are the two DoTs utilized by dragoons. Let’s take a closer look at them in order to clarify how DoT ticks work. Since the DoT of Chaos Thrust grants 35 potency per tick over 30 seconds, it does 35 x (30 seconds / 3 seconds per tick) = 350 potency, on top of the initial CT hit of 250 potency, for a grand total of 600 potency. By the same token, the Phlebotomize DoT grants 30 potency per tick over 18 seconds, translating into 30 x (18 seconds / 3 seconds per tick) = 180 potency, on top of the initial hit of 170 potency, for a grand total of 350 potency.
➤ Slight clipping is recommended. Again, “clipping” refers to when you overwrite an ability with itself, like if I were to use Chaos Thrust when my last Chaos Thrust DoT has 9 seconds remaining, thus cancelling the old CT DoT creating a new one with the full 30 second duration. Clipping on this scale is almost always a very bad idea, since it uses the DoT’s low initial potency sooner than when absolutely necessary. That said, if you execute your rotation perfectly with no downtime, you’ll find that there is a tiny amount of clipping, even at low levels of Skill Speed. Heavy Thrust, Disembowel, and Chaos Thrust (but not Phlebotomize) should all be landing when their previous applications have about one second or less remaining.
This is inevitable and, in fact, beneficial. The benefit is that our Heavy Thrust hit (170 potency) will itself be boosted by the Heavy Thrust buff of +15% to damage, which wouldn’t happen without clipping, while your Disembowel hit (220 potency) will be boosted by the Disembowel debuff of +10% to piercing damage, which also wouldn’t happen without clipping. In total, a rotation that clips will dish out an extra 170 x 0.15 x 1.10 = 28.05 potency per Heavy Thrust and 220 x 1.15 x 0.10 = 25.3 potency per Disembowel compared to a rotation that does not, for a net gain of 134.75 potency per full 24 GCDs, or 134.75 / 24 = +5.61 potency per hit on average.
This means that, as a dragoon, it’s imperative for you to have as little downtime as possible when executing the GCD abilities in your rotation. Failure to do so can result in a loss of slight clipping, as well as a general reduction in the number of damage-producing attacks that you use per unit of time. As Ayvar worded it: “get used to keyboard smashing.”
On a side note, there is one other consequence to slight clipping, but it shouldn’t really impact your DPS at all. Recall that the potency of a DoT is applied every three seconds, or “tick.” As it turns out, the timing of each tick is technically based on a fixed “pulse” clock determined for your character whenever you enter an instance, rather than being based on the moment you lay your DoT on the enemy. Since this is the case, if Chaos Thrust loses even a third of a second of its uptime, it’s possible that your pulse tick might occur during that third of a second, costing you 35 x 1.15 = 40.25 potency. Slight clipping prevents this from happening. On the other hand, every time you clip, you’re applying the low potency of your initial hit sooner than absolutely necessary for DoT maintenance. This technically results in a slight DPS loss—albeit one that’s necessary and unavoidable for your rotation.
While the specifics of how clipping (or a lack of clipping) will influence your DoT ticks can vary drastically from case to case depending on the fight, your Skill Speed, the timing of your ticks, etc., my assumption is that, for moderate levels of Skill Speed, the advantages of avoiding CT downtime are basically balanced out by the disadvantages of routinely clipping CT by a small amount.
➤ How important are auto-attacks? Very. Throughout an encounter, auto-attacks will be responsible for approximately 20% of your DPS. Because of this, you must make certain that your character continually faces the target he or she is attacking. Every moment you face away could potentially cost you an auto-attack that would normally be happening at that moment. For players who use Standard Movement Controls, this should be no issue: your character will slowly backpedal away from targets when moving backwards, giving you 100% auto-attack uptime so long as you’re within range of the opponent.
Legacy Movement Controls, however, complicate things slightly. When Legacy Movement is enabled, your character will actually run towards the camera when you press the back key. This is advantageous for dodging attacks, but prevents you from landing auto-attacks while the back movement is being executed. In order to maximize auto-attacks, anyone running DRG with Legacy Movement Controls active should either get comfortable with the game’s lock-on function, or make a habit of carefully strafing (with the left or right keys) and/or diagonally backpedaling (with right+back or left+back) during regular DPS conditions.
You can alter your movement control scheme under Settings —> Character Settings.
➤ How potency works. Since there is a great deal of difference between how powerful different characters are—e.g., a naked dragoon is much weaker than an item level 90 dragoon, who is much weaker than an item level 130 dragoon—potency acts as a concrete metric for comparing how strong different attacks are for any one gear set. For example, your use of Impulse Drive (180 potency) will always, on average, do half as much damage as your comboed Full Thrust attack (360 potency), even though the actual amounts of damage they do in terms of HP will dramatically increase over the course of time as you acquire gear with greater Strength, Determination, and Weapon Damage.
➤ Is it worth it to wait a moment beyond my GCD if doing so can help me land a positional? It depends on how long the moment is. For Heavy Thrust, we’re looking at a positional bonus of +70 x 1.15 x 1.10 = +88.55 potency during the regular course of our rotation. Since we know that the rotation itself hits an average of 331.39 potency per hit without buffs, we can play with these numbers to determine how much waiting is acceptable.
88.55 potency gained = (331.39 potency per hit / 2.5 seconds) x Y seconds
Therefore, Y = 88.55 / (331.39 / 2.5) = 0.67 seconds
So, we should be willing to wait no more than 2/3rds of a second beyond our GCD for HT’s positional bonus. With Chaos Thrust’s bonus of +50 x 1.15 x 1.10 = 63.25 potency, on the other hand, we get:
63.25 potency gained = (331.39 potency per hit / 2.5 seconds) x Z seconds
Therefore, Z = 63.25 / (331.39 / 2.5) = 0.48 seconds
...suggesting that we should be willing to wait no more than 0.48 seconds beyond our GCD for a CT rear hit. Therefore, a good rule of thumb is that we should be willing to wait a small fraction of a second in order to obtain a positional bonus.
Note that one mitigating factor here is slight clipping: if this fraction of a second of delay prevents HT from receiving the HT bonus and Dis from receiving the Dis debuff later on in your rotation, then the wait will not be worth it. Whether this ends up being the case will depend on your Skill Speed and the tightness of your rotation.
➤ What about Feint and Piercing Talon? These your two least useful abilities as a dragoon. Feint delivers an extremely small amount of potency (120), costs a GCD, and applies a Slow effect to non-immune enemies, reducing their auto-attack speed and ability-cast speed for 20 seconds. The overwhelming majority of powerful enemies in the game are simply immune to Slow. To the best of my knowledge, the only endgame fights in which Feint can be useful are Garuda EX (slowing Suparna can desynchronize the casts of Wicked Wheel) and Leviathan EX (slowing the Wavetooth Sahagin can delay the casts of Dreadstorm and Dreadwash). Even in these cases, Feint is usually less-than-ideal because black mages possess an off-GCD Slow called Lethargy, which also applies Heavy and can generally be used without sacrificing their rotation.
Meanwhile, Piercing Talon is a weak attack (120 potency, or 120 x 1.15 x 1.10 = 151.8 buffed potency) that requires a tremendous amount of TP (130). Admittedly, it’s nice to have a ranged attack in your arsenal, and there are a few settings in which it is useful—specifically, any situation in which you must step away from the enemy for several seconds, or any situation in which you need to walk towards the enemy for a while because you failed to save a gap-closer like Spineshatter Dive or Elusive Jump. On the other hand, Piercing Talon substantially weaker than your standard rotation and can ruin your TP management in more continuous fights.
➤ Doesn’t Disembowel actually boost the potency of our initial hits by 11.11%? From what we can tell, no. The 11.11% figure results from the confusing description provided in the Disembowel tooltip, coupled with some mathematical misunderstandings.
➤ DoTs get complicated. If we want to think clearly about DoT potencies and DoT clipping in unusual situations involving a persistent opponent, we need to approach the math in a somewhat counterintuitive way. Let’s quote reddit-user Cedonis’ explanation here:
“The cost of clipping a DoT -is not- about the ticks you ‘clip’. The connotation of the term is misleading here. If you choose not to clip the last tick off of a DoT, then on the next server tick you will get 30p worth (or however much) of damage. If you do choose to clip, then on the next server tick... you get 30p worth of damage. Nothing actually changes with the DoT ticks. What does happen is, you advance your re-application schedule by one GCD. This means that when all is said and done and your uptime has expired, there is a chance that you will have done an extra Phleb (or whatever) at the cost of some other, effectively random skill. In essence, it's the cost of using a weaker initial hit now, versus doing it (and all future hits of this skill) one GCD later, assuming you would have been able to do so without dropping the DoT for a tick.”
We’ll see this come into play during some later sections of this guide, such as my analysis of Fracture below. It may seem like an odd perspective, but it’s actually a more mathematically accurate way of thinking about DoTs—one that avoids some of the strange paradoxes which arise if we approach the math more simplistically/inaccurately.
HT —> ID —> Dis —> CT —> Phleb —> TT —> VT —> FT —> HT —> TT —> VT —> FT —> Phleb —> ID —> Dis —> CT —> HT —> TT —> VT —> FT —> Phleb —> TT —> VT —> FT —> (repeat)
Hit positionals to gain extra potency (HT on the flank, CT on the rear) and refresh TP with Invigorate when your bar reaches just under 500.
Here is a video I created for reference.
(B.) The Basics
When attacking a single target that takes a long time to die, there is an ideal order in which to apply your abilities. It might be thought of as a priority order. Activating your Heavy Thrust status, which adds an incredible +15% bonus to all damage for the next 20 seconds, is your first priority. Landing the Impulse Drive-Disembowel-Chaos Thrust combo is your second priority, since Disembowel makes your targeted enemy 10% weaker to piercing (DRG and BRD) damage for the next 30 seconds, and since Chaos Thrust is your single most powerful ability, weighing in at a full 600 potency across 30 seconds. Applying Phlebotomize is your last priority, since it’s also very strong, delivering 350 potency across 18 seconds.
Once all these core abilities are active, your goal is to refresh each one right before it runs out while filling downtime with the weakish True Thrust-Vorpal Thrust-Full Thrust combo. In short....
maintaining Heavy Thrust > maintaining Disembowel/Chaos Thrust > maintaining Phlebotomize > using True Thrust-Vorpal Thrust-Full Thrust.
When we follow our priorities and time everything perfectly, the dragoon rotation becomes:
Heavy Thrust —> Impulse Drive —> Disembowel —> Chaos Thrust —> Phlebotomize —> True Thrust —> Vorpal Thrust —> Full Thrust —> Heavy Thrust —> True Thrust —> Vorpal Thrust —> Full Thrust —> Phlebotomize —> Impulse Drive —> Disembowel —> Chaos Thrust —> Heavy Thrust —> True Thrust —> Vorpal Thrust —> Full Thrust —> Phlebotomize —> True Thrust —> Vorpal Thrust —> Full Thrust —> (repeat)
See here, here, or here for visual reference.
The rotation might look a little complex when laid out end-to-end, but it actually has a pretty simple rhythm to it. Think of it this way:
Heavy Thrust —> 1-2-3 combo —> Phlebotomize —> 1-2-3 combo —> Heavy Thrust —> 1-2-3 combo —> Phlebotomize —> 1-2-3 combo —> Heavy Thrust —> 1-2-3 combo —> Phlebotomize —> 1-2-3 combo
...repeated infinitely, such that your first 1-2-3 combo, and every third one after that (when Dis and CT are about to wear off), consists of Impulse Drive-Disembowel-Chaos Thrust. That said, all this will probably take a little getting used to if you’re new to the job. I would recommend practicing on a training dummy at Summerford Farms and organizing your HUD so that your character’s status effects and the enemy’s status effects are close to each other visually—thus allowing you to monitor the timings of Heavy Thrust, Disembowel, Chaos Thrust, and Phlebotomize all at once. As this rotation becomes more intuitive for you, you’ll make fewer mistakes, and soon enough you’ll find yourself dishing out insane amounts of damage.
Note that a “positional” refers to an attack that requires you to hit a specific part of the enemy in order to obtain some benefit. Hitting your positionals whenever possible as a dragoon is crucial. Specifically, the Heavy Thrust attack gains an extra 70 potency when used on an enemy’s flank, while Chaos Thrust gains an extra 50 initial potency when used on an enemy’s rear.
Finally, keep in mind that TP management is essential for continuous boss fights. You should always watch your TP bar closely, and pop Invigorate when it reaches the 450-500 range. After that, Invigorate should always be used the moment it becomes available. For extremely long and continuous fights, you’ll eventually need your party members to assist you with special abilities to keep from running out of TP (specifically, BRD’s Army’s Paeon and NIN’s Goad), even if you are managing Invigorate perfectly.
(C.) Details and Explanations
➤ Is this “the” single-target rotation for certain? Yes. The case is absolutely closed on this one. For a persistent, individual target with a large amount of health, this sequence of abilities will produce the highest quantity of damage possible for a dragoon.
➤ Why is this the rotation? The general idea behind this order of abilities is to maximize the uptime of your DoTs (CT and Phleb), your buff (HT), and your debuff (Dis), without ever applying them prematurely. If, for example, I were to accidentally use Phlebotomize with 9 seconds remaining on my last Phlebotomize application—i.e., if I “clip” the old Phlebotomize—this would mean that I’m using an attack with low initial potency (170) far sooner than I need to. Or if, say, I were to use the True Thrust-Vorpal Thrust-Full Thrust combo without my Heavy Thrust buff being active, I’d be losing out on a whopping (150 + 200 + 360) x 0.15 x 1.10 = 117.15 added potency that those attacks would have delivered. We want to avoid both clipping and downtime, and have everything sync up nicely, such that each skill gets reapplied when its predecessor has about one second or less remaining.
Meanwhile, the extra time between your applications of DoTs, buff, and debuff will be filled with your True Thrust-Vorpal Thrust-Full Thrust combo, which is relatively weak, reaching an average of (150 + 200 + 360) / 3 = 236.7 potency per hit, as compared to an average of (180 + 220 + 600) / 3 = 333.3 potency per hit for Impulse Drive-Disembowel-Chaos Thrust and 170 + (30 x 6) = 350 potency for an individual Phlebotomize.
➤ How strong is this rotation, exactly? If we consider the 24 attacks in the rotation, multiply all initial hits by x 1.15 x 1.10 (I’m assuming that we’re mid-rotation, so I’m not factoring in the delayed HT and Dis applications of the opener), multiply all DoT ticks by 1.15, and then divide by 24, we end up with:
((170 x 1.15 x 1.10) x 3) + (((180 + 220 + 250) x 1.15 x 1.10) x 2) + ((350 x 1.15) x 2) + ((170 x 1.15 x 1.10) x 3) + ((180 x 1.15) x 3) + (((150 + 200 + 360) x 1.15 x 1.10) x 4) = 7953.4 potency
7953.4 potency / 24 GCDs = 331.39 potency per hit
That 331.39 figure will be important for many of the theoretical considerations we’ll deal with throughout this guide, since it acts as a baseline against which we can compare our actions, such as AoE rotations, unorthodox attacks like Piercing Talon, using gap-closers vs. walking, etc. Please note that this is technically just an estimate: it doesn’t account for off-GCDs like Blood for Blood and Jump, nor does it account for critical hits or higher levels of Skill Speed. Still, most of the decisions we compare it against will also use the same off-GCDs and the same levels of Skill Speed/Critical Hit Rate (i.e., yours), so 331.39 should still be a very useful number.
➤ Why use Phlebotomize after Impulse Drive-Disembowel-Chaos Thrust, rather than before? This approach grants the Disembowel debuff of +10% to piercing damage to Phlebotomize’s initial hit (although not to its damage over time) during your opener. In other words, that 170 potency that you get from Phlebotomize right away will be boosted by both Heavy Thrust and Disembowel in addition to Blood for Blood, upping it to a whopping 170 x 1.15 x 1.30 x 1.10 = 279.57 potency, rather than the mere 170 x 1.15 x 1.30 = 254.15 potency it would deliver with HT and BFB but without Disembowel. We receive a net gain of 25.42 potency (or, 25.42 x 1.5 = 38.13 in the event of a critical hit) to our opener.
Another advantage of this approach is that, for some reason, it makes it much easier to slightly clip your applications of Heavy Thrust and Disembowel throughout the rotation, which is a good thing (more on that below). At low Skill Speeds, slight clipping is outright impossible to achieve in a rotation that begins with HT-Phleb-ID-Dis-CT.
Finally, using Phlebotomize after your ID-Dis-CT combo enables you to execute a much more powerful opener, such that your first Chaos Thrust and your first Phlebotomize are both buffed by Internal Release, Blood for Blood, and a potion of strength.
➤ What if I mess the rotation up? If you accidentally begin using the wrong 1-2-3 combo (Impulse Drive-Disembowel-Chaos Thrust instead of True Thrust-Vorpal Thrust-Full Thrust or vice versa), just stick with it. Breaking a combo is almost always a bad idea; it will cause you to miss out on a lot of potency from the remaining attacks, even if those attacks weren’t 100% ideal for your rotation.
If you mess up your rotation in some other way—for example, by using Phlebotomize when you should have used Heavy Thrust—just keep your priority order in mind when deciding what to do next (maintaining Heavy Thrust > maintaining Disembowel/Chaos Thrust > maintaining Phlebotomize > using True Thrust-Vorpal Thrust-Full Thrust).
➤ When are positional bonuses determined, precisely? The potency bonus for any positional is determined by your relationship to the enemy at the instant you click your skill—not when the animation is completed. You’ll find that you can often exploit this fact and sneak in a positional hit before an enemy moves or uses an AoE attack. That said, positional bonuses aren’t worth dying for; you still get your Heavy Thrust buff and your Chaos Thrust DoT ticks if you land either of these attacks on the wrong part of the enemy. Play it safe if you’re worried that you might eat an avoidable AoE and die.
➤ Why is TP management so important? For continuous fights like Shiva EX, T8, T10, and T11, a lack of careful TP management can leave you sitting on your thumbs, waiting an extra 1-3 seconds for each GCD. This ruins your rotation and represents a tremendous damage loss. Delaying your first Invigorate by even a little extra—letting your TP drop to, say, 350 before using it—can leave you dry very early on in an encounter, forcing you to beg for a premature Army’s Paeon (a party-wide, TP-regenerating BRD ability) or Goad (a single-target, TP-generating NIN ability). This is particularly disadvantageous for the party if you need an early Army’s Paeon, since that skill reduces your bard’s damage by 20% while active.
In the event that you do run out of TP during a fight, and you cannot get an Army’s Paeon or Goad, I would recommend removing Phlebotomize from your rotation as a way of keeping yourself a little bit more above water. Also, if you are using Invigorate properly, and your group’s Bard and/or Ninja refuses to assist you with Army’s Paeon/Goad on a regular basis, they are legitimately hindering your group’s DPS. TP depletion might not be the end of the world in emergency situations (e.g., if a healer dies and an unexpected Mage’s Ballad is needed from the bard), but your damage will absolutely plummet if you’re out of TP for any sustained length of time.
➤ Uptime is king! If you want to get the most out of DRG, it’s essential to remain on the enemy at all times, hitting the GCDs in your rotation the instant they become available. Every fraction of a second that you lose beyond that 2.5-seconds-or-less GCD timer represents lost DPS to the tune of at least 331.39 potency / 2.5 seconds = 132.56 potency per second.
➤ How do Heavy Thrust and Disembowel work, precisely? The Heavy Thrust buff provides a 15% damage boost to every ability you use while it is active. For example, True Thrust will be buffed from 150 potency to 150 x 1.15 = 172.5 potency, Vorpal Thrust will be buffed from 200 potency to 200 x 1.15 = 230 potency, and Full Thrust will be buffed from 360 potency to 360 x 1.15 = 414 potency.
The Disembowel debuff, on the other hand, works a little differently. First, it operates only on the enemy you apply it to, making that specific foe take 10% more damage from “piercing” attacks, referring to attacks (including auto-attacks) by dragoons and bards. Second, it only affects initial hits, rather than damage over time. This is because initial hits are considered piercing damage, whereas DoT ticks count as “physical” damage. For example, landing Phlebotomize on an enemy afflicted with Disembowel will boost the initial 170 potency of the original attack by 10% to 170 x 1.10 = 187 potency, without at all affecting the subsequent DoT damage of 30 potency every 3 seconds over 18 seconds = 180. This distinguishes Disembowel from some other debuffs, such as Foe’s Requiem, which buffs the initial hits and DoTs alike of casters.
Finally, it’s worth noting that the percentage boost from Disembowel is not simply added to the percentage boost from Heavy Thrust, but rather, acts as a multiplier to any attack’s HT-buffed 115% damage. For example, the 200 potency of an in-combo Vorpal Thrust will be increased by 15% by Heavy Thrust, and then that resulting value will be increased by 10% by Disembowel, for an end result of (200 x 1.15) x 1.10 = 253 potency. This is not the same as a raw 10% + 15% = 25% damage increase, which would have given us 200 x 1.25 = 250 potency. In short, the bonuses from any stacked buffs/debuffs are applied multiplicatively, rather than additively.
Technically, therefore, Heavy Thrust and Disembowel work together to grant dragoons an impressive 26.5% damage increase to all initial hits.
➤ What if I have to step away from the battle for a mechanic? Or what if I have to use Limit Break? I often find that, when I need to step away from a boss for a few seconds to deal with some mechanic, it makes sense to simply omit one of the 1-2-3 combos from my rotation and then refresh Heavy Thrust or Phlebotomize (whichever one is closest to falling off) as I return. In other words, I might have a rotation that looks like:
Heavy Thrust —> ID-Dis-CT —> Phlebotomize —> Oh, crap; mechanics! Piercing Talon —> Piercing Talon —> Piercing Talon -(return to enemy)-> Heavy Thrust —> TT-VT-FT —> Phlebotomize —> etc.
This also works nicely for level 2 and level 3 Limit Breaks. Something along the lines of the following...
Heavy Thrust —> ID-Dis-CT —> Phlebotomize —> Limit Break —> Heavy Thrust —> TT-VT-FT —> Phlebotomize —> etc.
...is ideal for many fights, since it allows me to maintain HT, Dis, CT, and Phleb quite seamlessly both before and after LB. In other words, the best moment for a Limit Break will be right in the space of your rotation where you’d normally be using the True Thrust-Vorpal Thrust-Full Thrust combo.
That said, you sometimes can’t afford to wait. If you have to interrupt a combo or lose your Heavy Thrust buff in order to land LB at the right moment, don’t hesitate—do it!
➤ Do I really have to be the one to use Limit Break? For most fights, yes. The damage dealt by LB—whether level 1, level 2, or level 3—will surpass your single-target DPS for that cast time by a very, very large margin. Moreover, since a core mechanic for monks is that they must maintain Greased Lightning (a buff that requires constant use of their GCDs to keep active), DRG is by far the most logical choice for using melee LB in any party featuring one dragoon and one monk. (A ninja, on the other hand, should be an equally viable candidate for melee LB compared to a dragoon.)
Don’t think of Limit Break as a burden on your mad deeps; instead, think of it as a core gameplay responsibility of being a dragoon.
➤ Should I modify my rotation if a boss enemy is going to die within the next 10 seconds or so? Ideally, yes. It’s OK to continue with your regular rotation as an enemy nears death; however, if you want to squeeze every last ounce of damage possible out of your DRG, you may have to change things up. Pumping out an extra 20-50 potency could mean that the enemy dies a full GCD sooner, which could potentially make the difference between a clear and a wipe.
Keep in mind that all of this assumes that (1) you aren’t in the middle of a combo (TT-VT-FT or ID-Dis-CT) already, since you virtually always want to continue any combo that you have started; and, (2) you are already in the middle of executing your rotation correctly on the boss as its health begins to get low.
The simple breakdown is:
1 GCD: ID
2 GCDs: ID-Dis
3 GCDs: TT-VT-FT
4 GCDs: refresh HT or Phleb—whichever is about to fall off—and then use TT-VT-FT
When we reach 5 GCD hits or more, the math involved becomes too complex for there to be any one recommendation, so use your best judgment
To modify your rotation along these lines, you’ll have to get a good intuitive sense for how close an enemy is to death. This can take some practice to achieve, and, even then, you’ll still make mistakes from time to time.
Now, for those who are interested in the math, let’s break down our options in greater detail based on the number of GCDs remaining before the enemy’s death and the point you are at in your rotation.
2 GCDs (HT and Dis don’t alter our decision):
Use: ID-Dis = 180 + 220 = 400 potency
Don’t use: Phleb —> ID
170 + 30 + 180 = 380 potency
Don’t use: TT-VT = 150 + 200 = 350 potency
3 GCDs (HT and Dis don’t alter our decision):
Use: TT-VT-FT = 150 + 200 + 360 = 710 potency
Don’t use: ID-Dis-CT = 180 + 220 + 250 = 650 potency
4 GCDs (HT is active and Phleb is about to fall off):
Use: Phleb —> TT-VT-FT
((170 + 30 + 30 (possibly + 30 extra depending on tick timing) + 150 + 200 + 360) x 1.15) x 1.10 (possibly minus (360 x 1.15) x 0.10 = 41.4 potency if Disembowel drops off before Full Thrust) = 1147.7 potency to 1227.05 potency
Don’t use: Phleb —> ID-Dis-CT
(((170 + 180 + 220 + 250) x 1.15) x 1.10) + (2 to 3 ticks of 30) x 1.15) = 1106.3 potency to 1140.8 potency
Don’t use: TT-VT-FT —> ID
((150 + 200 + 360 + 180) x 1.15) x 1.10 (possibly minus (180 x 1.15) x 0.10 = 20.7 if Disembowel drops off before Impulse Drive) = 1105.15 to 1125.85 potency
4 GCDs (HT is just about to fall off and Phleb is active):
Use: HT —> TT-VT-FT
((170 + 150 + 200 + 360) x 1.15) x 1.10 (possibly minus (360 x 1.15) x 0.10 = 41.4 potency if Disembowel drops off before Full Thrust) = 1071.8 to 1113.2 potency
Don’t use: HT —> ID-Dis-CT
((170 + 180 + 220 + 250) x 1.15) x 1.10 = 1037.3 potency
Don’t use: Phleb —> TT-VT-FT
((170 x 1.15) x 1.10) + ((150 +200 + 360) x 1.10) (possibly plus 30 x 1.15 extra depending on tick timing; here, we would be clipping our old Phlebotomize, so we couldn’t gain more than one net tick) (possibly minus 360 x 0.10 = 36 potency if Disembowel drops off before Full Thrust) = 960.05 to 1030.55 potency
I’ll conclude by briefly mentioning that things get substantially more complex when you reach 5 GCDs. At this point, Heavy Thrust, Disembowel, Chaos Thrust, and Phlebotomize could all be falling off (or not falling off) at different moments, and we encounter a much greater number of possibilities. You’ll simply have to use your best judgment.
➤ What if I’ve just started attacking a single enemy that has a small amount of health? The math for this situation is a bit more straightforward, since we know that neither Disembowel nor Phlebotomize will be active on our target as we begin. On the other hand, there may be some variation with the Heavy Thrust buff. For the sake of simplicity, we will assume that your Heavy Thrust status is not active when you begin DPSing your opponent here. Here’s what you should do based on the number of GCDs remaining before the enemy’s death:
1 GCD: ID
2 GCDs: ID-Dis
3 GCDs: TT-VT-FT
4 GCDs: HT —> TT-VT-FT
5 GCDs: HT —> Phleb —> TT-VT-FT
6 GCDs: ID-Dis-CT —> TT-VT-FT
7 GCDs: HT —> ID-Dis-CT —> TT-VT-FT
8 GCDs: HT —> Phleb —> ID-Dis-CT —> TT-VT-FT
Most of these choices are fairly intuitive, so I won’t dissect things too thoroughly. The most complex situation here is when our enemy has 6 GCDs to live. I will briefly walk through a few 6-GCD approaches to illustrate the logic behind my advice:
Use: ID-Dis-CT —> TT-VT-FT
180 + 220 + (250 x 1.10) + (2 to 3 ticks of 35) + ((150 + 200 + 360) x 1.10) = 1526 to 1561 potency
Don’t use: HT —> ID-Dis —> TT-VT-FT
170 + ((180 + 220) x 1.15) + ((150 + 200 + 360) x 1.15 x 1.10) = 1528.15 potency
Don’t use: HT —> Ph —> TT-VT-FT —> ID
170 + (170 x 1.15) + (3 to 4 ticks of 30 x 1.15) + ((150 + 200 + 360 + 180) x 1.15) = 1492.5 to 1527 potency
Don’t use: HT —> Ph —> Fracture —> TT-VT-FT
170 + (170 x 1.15) + (3 to 4 ticks of 30 x 1.15) + (100 x 1.15) + (2 to 3 ticks of 20 x 1.15) + ((150 + 200 + 360) x 1.15) = 1446.5 to 1504 potency
Don’t use: HT —> Ph —> ID-Dis-CT —> ID
170 + (170 x 1.15) + (3 to 4 ticks of 30 x 1.15) + ((180 + 220) x 1.15) + (250 x 1.15 x 1.10) + (1 tick of 35 x 1.15) + (180 x 1.15 x 1.10) = 365.5 + 103.5-to-138 + 460 + 316.75 + 40.25 + 227.7 = 1513.7 to 1548.2 potency
➤ How am I supposed to interpret the potency of a DoT? All DoTs in FFXIV apply their potency to the enemy every 3 seconds, or what is referred to as a “tick.” Chaos Thrust and Phlebotomize are the two DoTs utilized by dragoons. Let’s take a closer look at them in order to clarify how DoT ticks work. Since the DoT of Chaos Thrust grants 35 potency per tick over 30 seconds, it does 35 x (30 seconds / 3 seconds per tick) = 350 potency, on top of the initial CT hit of 250 potency, for a grand total of 600 potency. By the same token, the Phlebotomize DoT grants 30 potency per tick over 18 seconds, translating into 30 x (18 seconds / 3 seconds per tick) = 180 potency, on top of the initial hit of 170 potency, for a grand total of 350 potency.
➤ Slight clipping is recommended. Again, “clipping” refers to when you overwrite an ability with itself, like if I were to use Chaos Thrust when my last Chaos Thrust DoT has 9 seconds remaining, thus cancelling the old CT DoT creating a new one with the full 30 second duration. Clipping on this scale is almost always a very bad idea, since it uses the DoT’s low initial potency sooner than when absolutely necessary. That said, if you execute your rotation perfectly with no downtime, you’ll find that there is a tiny amount of clipping, even at low levels of Skill Speed. Heavy Thrust, Disembowel, and Chaos Thrust (but not Phlebotomize) should all be landing when their previous applications have about one second or less remaining.
This is inevitable and, in fact, beneficial. The benefit is that our Heavy Thrust hit (170 potency) will itself be boosted by the Heavy Thrust buff of +15% to damage, which wouldn’t happen without clipping, while your Disembowel hit (220 potency) will be boosted by the Disembowel debuff of +10% to piercing damage, which also wouldn’t happen without clipping. In total, a rotation that clips will dish out an extra 170 x 0.15 x 1.10 = 28.05 potency per Heavy Thrust and 220 x 1.15 x 0.10 = 25.3 potency per Disembowel compared to a rotation that does not, for a net gain of 134.75 potency per full 24 GCDs, or 134.75 / 24 = +5.61 potency per hit on average.
This means that, as a dragoon, it’s imperative for you to have as little downtime as possible when executing the GCD abilities in your rotation. Failure to do so can result in a loss of slight clipping, as well as a general reduction in the number of damage-producing attacks that you use per unit of time. As Ayvar worded it: “get used to keyboard smashing.”
On a side note, there is one other consequence to slight clipping, but it shouldn’t really impact your DPS at all. Recall that the potency of a DoT is applied every three seconds, or “tick.” As it turns out, the timing of each tick is technically based on a fixed “pulse” clock determined for your character whenever you enter an instance, rather than being based on the moment you lay your DoT on the enemy. Since this is the case, if Chaos Thrust loses even a third of a second of its uptime, it’s possible that your pulse tick might occur during that third of a second, costing you 35 x 1.15 = 40.25 potency. Slight clipping prevents this from happening. On the other hand, every time you clip, you’re applying the low potency of your initial hit sooner than absolutely necessary for DoT maintenance. This technically results in a slight DPS loss—albeit one that’s necessary and unavoidable for your rotation.
While the specifics of how clipping (or a lack of clipping) will influence your DoT ticks can vary drastically from case to case depending on the fight, your Skill Speed, the timing of your ticks, etc., my assumption is that, for moderate levels of Skill Speed, the advantages of avoiding CT downtime are basically balanced out by the disadvantages of routinely clipping CT by a small amount.
➤ How important are auto-attacks? Very. Throughout an encounter, auto-attacks will be responsible for approximately 20% of your DPS. Because of this, you must make certain that your character continually faces the target he or she is attacking. Every moment you face away could potentially cost you an auto-attack that would normally be happening at that moment. For players who use Standard Movement Controls, this should be no issue: your character will slowly backpedal away from targets when moving backwards, giving you 100% auto-attack uptime so long as you’re within range of the opponent.
Legacy Movement Controls, however, complicate things slightly. When Legacy Movement is enabled, your character will actually run towards the camera when you press the back key. This is advantageous for dodging attacks, but prevents you from landing auto-attacks while the back movement is being executed. In order to maximize auto-attacks, anyone running DRG with Legacy Movement Controls active should either get comfortable with the game’s lock-on function, or make a habit of carefully strafing (with the left or right keys) and/or diagonally backpedaling (with right+back or left+back) during regular DPS conditions.
You can alter your movement control scheme under Settings —> Character Settings.
➤ How potency works. Since there is a great deal of difference between how powerful different characters are—e.g., a naked dragoon is much weaker than an item level 90 dragoon, who is much weaker than an item level 130 dragoon—potency acts as a concrete metric for comparing how strong different attacks are for any one gear set. For example, your use of Impulse Drive (180 potency) will always, on average, do half as much damage as your comboed Full Thrust attack (360 potency), even though the actual amounts of damage they do in terms of HP will dramatically increase over the course of time as you acquire gear with greater Strength, Determination, and Weapon Damage.
➤ Is it worth it to wait a moment beyond my GCD if doing so can help me land a positional? It depends on how long the moment is. For Heavy Thrust, we’re looking at a positional bonus of +70 x 1.15 x 1.10 = +88.55 potency during the regular course of our rotation. Since we know that the rotation itself hits an average of 331.39 potency per hit without buffs, we can play with these numbers to determine how much waiting is acceptable.
88.55 potency gained = (331.39 potency per hit / 2.5 seconds) x Y seconds
Therefore, Y = 88.55 / (331.39 / 2.5) = 0.67 seconds
So, we should be willing to wait no more than 2/3rds of a second beyond our GCD for HT’s positional bonus. With Chaos Thrust’s bonus of +50 x 1.15 x 1.10 = 63.25 potency, on the other hand, we get:
63.25 potency gained = (331.39 potency per hit / 2.5 seconds) x Z seconds
Therefore, Z = 63.25 / (331.39 / 2.5) = 0.48 seconds
...suggesting that we should be willing to wait no more than 0.48 seconds beyond our GCD for a CT rear hit. Therefore, a good rule of thumb is that we should be willing to wait a small fraction of a second in order to obtain a positional bonus.
Note that one mitigating factor here is slight clipping: if this fraction of a second of delay prevents HT from receiving the HT bonus and Dis from receiving the Dis debuff later on in your rotation, then the wait will not be worth it. Whether this ends up being the case will depend on your Skill Speed and the tightness of your rotation.
➤ What about Feint and Piercing Talon? These your two least useful abilities as a dragoon. Feint delivers an extremely small amount of potency (120), costs a GCD, and applies a Slow effect to non-immune enemies, reducing their auto-attack speed and ability-cast speed for 20 seconds. The overwhelming majority of powerful enemies in the game are simply immune to Slow. To the best of my knowledge, the only endgame fights in which Feint can be useful are Garuda EX (slowing Suparna can desynchronize the casts of Wicked Wheel) and Leviathan EX (slowing the Wavetooth Sahagin can delay the casts of Dreadstorm and Dreadwash). Even in these cases, Feint is usually less-than-ideal because black mages possess an off-GCD Slow called Lethargy, which also applies Heavy and can generally be used without sacrificing their rotation.
Meanwhile, Piercing Talon is a weak attack (120 potency, or 120 x 1.15 x 1.10 = 151.8 buffed potency) that requires a tremendous amount of TP (130). Admittedly, it’s nice to have a ranged attack in your arsenal, and there are a few settings in which it is useful—specifically, any situation in which you must step away from the enemy for several seconds, or any situation in which you need to walk towards the enemy for a while because you failed to save a gap-closer like Spineshatter Dive or Elusive Jump. On the other hand, Piercing Talon substantially weaker than your standard rotation and can ruin your TP management in more continuous fights.
➤ Doesn’t Disembowel actually boost the potency of our initial hits by 11.11%? From what we can tell, no. The 11.11% figure results from the confusing description provided in the Disembowel tooltip, coupled with some mathematical misunderstandings.
➤ DoTs get complicated. If we want to think clearly about DoT potencies and DoT clipping in unusual situations involving a persistent opponent, we need to approach the math in a somewhat counterintuitive way. Let’s quote reddit-user Cedonis’ explanation here:
“The cost of clipping a DoT -is not- about the ticks you ‘clip’. The connotation of the term is misleading here. If you choose not to clip the last tick off of a DoT, then on the next server tick you will get 30p worth (or however much) of damage. If you do choose to clip, then on the next server tick... you get 30p worth of damage. Nothing actually changes with the DoT ticks. What does happen is, you advance your re-application schedule by one GCD. This means that when all is said and done and your uptime has expired, there is a chance that you will have done an extra Phleb (or whatever) at the cost of some other, effectively random skill. In essence, it's the cost of using a weaker initial hit now, versus doing it (and all future hits of this skill) one GCD later, assuming you would have been able to do so without dropping the DoT for a tick.”
We’ll see this come into play during some later sections of this guide, such as my analysis of Fracture below. It may seem like an odd perspective, but it’s actually a more mathematically accurate way of thinking about DoTs—one that avoids some of the strange paradoxes which arise if we approach the math more simplistically/inaccurately.
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