Final Fantasy XIV Melee DPS A Rotation Reborn Guides 2017 - FF14GILHUB.COM

This guide was originally written to introduce new Dragoon players to the correct management of their wide variety of abilities so as to best maximize their dps.

It Get's Complicated
Due to the difference in duration of your HT/Ph and ID-Dis-CT applications, if you use only the above rotation you will eventually begin to overwrite buffs before they were due to expire. To maximize your dps you must only reapply your 10% HT/Dis buff right before it expires, and your Ph/CT DoTs right after they fall off. This is impossible to do perfectly, but there are some rules of thumb to help. (1) after the application of HT/Ph, you have 7 abilities before you need to reapply them (so they should be reapplied on the 8th GCD). This is easy enough to calculate (20s / 2.5s GCD = 8), or try it out for yourself and see. Even with extra skill speed this works out to be pretty accurate due to some lost time due to movement/mechanics. Your 30s debuffs give you an 11 ability gap before their reapplication (30s / 2.5 GCD = 12). Again, this holds true in practice and not just on paper. With this in mind, you will end up with a staggered application of the 20s and 30s abilities since they have a differing number of ability gaps between.
So let's build our full dragoon rotation, starting with what we have previously built:

(1) HT-ID-Dis-CT-Ph-TT-VT-FT
By the end of the rotation we have used 7 abilities since the last HT, so now HT should be reapplied.

(2) HT-ID-Dis-CT-Ph-TT-VT-FT-HT
But it has only been 7 moves since our last application of Dis/CT, and 4 since Ph, so we have some free time. We've already assessed that the best thing to do with free time is TT-VT-FT, so let's do that.

(3) HT-ID-Dis-CT-Ph-TT-VT-FT-HT-TT-VT-FT
Now it has been 7 moves since the last Ph, so we reapply.

(4) HT-ID-Dis-CT-Ph-TT-VT-FT-HT-TT-VT-FT-Ph
Now it has been 10 moves since the last Disembowel/Chaos Thrust, but remember you have to use ID prior to Dis/CT, so that will add an extra ability bringing us up to 11 moves, in perfect timing for the reapplication of our 30s debuffs.

(5) HT-ID-Dis-CT-Ph-TT-VT-FT-HT-TT-VT-FT-Ph-ID-Dis-CT
It has again been 7 moves since our last HT, so we reapply.

(6) HT-ID-Dis-CT-Ph-TT-VT-FT-HT-TT-VT-FT-Ph-ID-Dis-CT-HT
But we're still not back at the start of the rotation since we've just reapplied ID-Dis-CT prior to the HT. And how do we fill free time?

(7) HT-ID-Dis-CT-Ph-TT-VT-FT-HT-TT-VT-FT-Ph-ID-Dis-CT-HT-TT-VT-FT
7 moves since the last Ph, so reapply:

(8) HT-ID-Dis-CT-Ph-TT-VT-FT-HT-TT-VT-FT-Ph-ID-Dis-CT-HT-TT-VT-FT-Ph
We have a little free time before we have to reapply HT and Dis/CT, so we fill it as we usually do:

(9) HT-ID-Dis-CT-Ph-TT-VT-FT-HT-TT-VT-FT-Ph-ID-Dis-CT-HT-TT-VT-FT-Ph-TT-VT-FT
It has now been 7 moves since the last application of HT, and 9 moves since our last application of Disembowel. This finally brings us back to the beginning of the rotation since now both the 20s HT and 30s ID-Dis-CT abilities must be reapplied in the order they occurred at the start of the rotation.

The full dragoon rotation is therefore #9: 

HT-ID-Dis-CT-Ph-TT-VT-FT-HT-TT-VT-FT-Ph-ID-Dis-CT-HT-TT-VT-FT-Ph-TT-VT-FT
A non-repeating sequence of 24 moves. Isn't dragoon life grand? Here's my crappy flow diagram to show that the thought process of the rotation isn't actually that bad once you've practiced, just a rotating cycle of 4 moves/combos.

This Isn't Even My Final Form

We've got our primary ability rotation down, now let's make our lives worse by talking about off-GCD abilities. They are as follows: Blood for Blood (BFB), Internal Release (IR), Life Surge (LS), Power Surge (PS), Jump, Leg Sweep (Sweep), Mercy Stroke (MS). I do not like including Dragonfire Dive (DFD) or Spineshatter Dive (SD) in the off-GCD rotation since they are your best positioning abilities. If you need to get to an add and back to the boss quickly you can use them to cut down movement and maximize your dps uptime. There are also fights where the extra stun from SD comes in handy (e.g. Amdapor Keep).

Off-GCD abilities are best used in between your other abilities. For example, after using Heavy Thrust, during the 2.5 GCD, you can Leg Sweep before the GCD comes up for your next ability. There are two problems that screw this up. First, you cannot use more than one off-GCD ability in between two main abilities without sacrificing dps. This is the design of the game so far, it ain't our fault, we just deal with it. Second, you have to spam the crap out of the abilities to get them to work. Frequently the ability won't actually go off until around the final second of your GCD, and hitting the ability in the initial 1.5s won't do anything, so get used to keyboard smashing. Let's take our main ability rotation:
HT-ID-Dis-CT-Ph-TT-VT-FT-HT-TT-VT-FT-Ph-ID-Dis-CT-HT-TT-VT-FT-Ph-TT-VT-FT
Now add the off-GCD abilites.
HT-IR-ID-BFB-Dis-Sweep-CT-PS-Ph-Jump-TT-VT-LS-FT-HT-TT-VT-Sweep-FT-Ph-ID-Dis-CT-HT-TT-VT-Sweep-FT-Ph-Jump-TT-VT-FT
Plus Mercy Stroke soon as the mob hits 20%. Internal Release gets used first since if you put BFB in that spot you run the risk of it falling off before you can use it on Full Thrust. It doesn't matter if IR falls off for the Full Thrust since you'll be using Life Surge on it anyway. The order of off-GCD abilites will never be the same in any two main ability rotations as they have widely differing cooldowns. The only thing you need to worry about is keeping them on cooldown at all times. Sometimes you'll want to save one or two (such as Leg Sweep for stuns or BFB/LS for bursting an add), but in general they should all be on cooldown.
The dragoon job is fiendishly complicated, but mastering the combination of buff/debuff timers and off-GCD cooldowns will cause you to transcend to the holy plane of dps glory. Also you'll spend ages optimizing your hotbars so you can keep track of all this crap. Here's my pre-2.1 keyboard+mouse guide to give a general guideline for potential hotbars setups: http://imgur.com/iSywWZ5 (M3-M5 are mouse buttons), for people with controllers you'll have to wrestle with that beast yourself.
First thing I want to note is that some people will take issue with my use of the term "rotation" since FFXIV works more with priority as it is difficult to maintain a large amount of uptime on most raid/dungeon bosses due to boss movement or having to switch to adds. However, as you improve as a player and get used to boss mechanics and movement your uptime on the bosses will become so consistent that your moveset will inevitably follow a predictable rotation. It is always better to think in terms of priority, but using a set rotation can help you familiarize yourself with what to use when, and help the transition into a "priority" mindset.
Second, the dragoon rotation is extremely complicated. All told our primary rotation can use up to 9 main abilities and 7 off-GCD abilities, along with 3 other main abilities (AE+slow) and 6 other off-GCD abilities that we can use depending on the situation. So at any given moment in a fight a dragoon is attempting to choose between 25 different things that they could be doing. While this gives the dragoon a complex playstyle, it's also why I love it. There is nothing a dragoon doesn't have an answer for. Also, if you get everything just right our dps can be extraordinary.

The Basics
The dragoon rotation is built around maintaining your buffs and debuffs. Heavy Thrust (HT) provides a 15% damage buff when used from the flank (unless you have one of those tanks that doesn't like sitting still for some reason), and Disembowel (Dis) provides a -10% piercing resistance debuff when used after an Impulse Drive (ID) from behind. These must be maintained to ensure maximum dps. Note that a buff to damage done (HT) is not the same as a buff to damage received (Dis). Buffs to damage done will modify the base damage of the ability (e.g. 100 damage +15% from HT = 115 damage), while buffs to damage taken will use the final damage amount after if has been modified by other buffs (e.g. 100 damage +15% = 115 + 10% damage taken = 126.5 and not 100 + 15% & 10% = 125). The maintenance of these buffs/debuffs provides the first part of the dragoon rotation:

HT-ID-Dis-CT-TT-VT-FT
This is the point where the true rotation management begins. HT provides a 20s buff, Dis and CT provide 30s debuffs. Your life as a dragoon now revolves around ensuring the consistent reapplication of these abilities, while maximizing your free time in between. This means if you continue using a HT-ID-Dis-CT rotation you will waste the extra 10s provided by the difference between their buff durations. What else could we fill some of that time with? Well Phlebotomize (Ph) is an extremely powerful ability (a total of 170 upfront + 150 DoT = 320 potency), only needs to be reapplied every 18s when the DoT falls off, and it doesn't require any preceding combo moves. Because of that we can stick it directly after the IDC combo, prior to beginning the TT-VT-FT combo:

HT-ID-Dis-Chaos Thrust (CT)
Heavy Thrust is used first since you'll receive a damage boost over more abilities than you would if you started with ID-Dis-CT.
Now that both of your damage buff abilities have been applied, what do you do? Well you could just spam the ID-Dis-CT combo, in pure potency this is a 180-220-200/300=900 potency rotation, however you must remember that the DoT portion of CT has already been applied. DoTs tick ~every 3s, so a 30s DoT that ticks for 30 potency accounts for 300 potency worth of damage. That means spamming ID-Dis-CT after the CT DoT has been applied is actually only a 180-220-200=600 potency combo. Your other option is to switch to a True Thrust (TT) - Vorpal Thrust (VT) - Full Thrust (FT) combo. Though on paper this is a 150-200-330=680 potency combination compared to the 900 of ID-Dis-CT, since the CT DoT has already been applied in our rotation then the TT-VT-FT combo is actually much higher damage than spamming ID-Dis-CT.