The Final Fantasy XIV Thread [Dawntrail - 7.00]

[Dragonslayer Ornstein]

Anyone here on Gilgamesh?

 

[Miscreant]

Finally got our A3S clear, seconds off of enrage & it's harder than T9 Savage was, but definitely one of the best fights in the game so far.

 

[ForceStealer]

So that

Spoiler: final main scenario boss for Heavensward

...freaking amazing. I can't believe I didn't see it coming, but once all the knights transformed into their super forms, it was "Holy shit it's Knights of the Round!" Down to the outfits and those double-plumes on some of the knights helms. They used the weapons they were supposed to, and Ultimate End was bitchin with the obligatory screen-shatter at the end.

Bravo, XIV. Once again, your callbacks are flawlessly executed.

 

[Joe]

Yeah, that is one of my favourite fights from all of FFXIV to this point. It looks and feels epic, even when you're repeating it for the fiftieth time.

The upcomin patch, 3.1, introduces the Minstrel's Ballad version of this fight. If the previous Minstrel's Ballad fight was anything to go by then expect it to be bigger and even flashier!

 

[Miscreant]

It's such an epic fight! Definitely the thing I'm most hyped for in 3.1. I've felt that 3.0 hasn't brought us a solid Trial/Primal yet but honestly think this is going fix that.

I enjoyed Ravana at first but it got dull really fast, where as I can go back and enjoy Titan, Ramuh and Shiva even now.

 

[Cait Sith]

I need to play on the server more >.> It's been ages since I've logged in, I know.

BUT, I've also finally made my own separate account so that my fiance and I can play together and do you know how tiring it is to have to re-do everything and start all over?

ANYWHO.

I need some help. My main is alllmost lvl 57 DRG, and I still pretty much have no clue what I'm doing other than the main combos my fiance taught me: Start off with Heavy Thrust + Ring of Thorns (is that an actual combo? Because sometimes the dotted line pops up around the latter, and sometimes not), then Impulse Drive/Disembowel/Chaos Thrust, then True/Vorpal/Full Thrust, throwing in Leg Sweep between True & Vorpal.

Of course I use the other stuff that takes longer to recover/reuse during boss fights like Phlebotomize, Blood for Blood, Keen Flurry, Power Surge, and Bloodbath, but I'm sure I'm not using them at appropriate times.

And then there's everything else... My jumps and things like Dragonfire Dive, Spineshatter Dive, Jump, and whatnot..

I don't want to be just an average/borderline shitty dragoon.. I want to be really good at it.

Help?

 

[Joker]

jesus the new ballad is stupid

 

[Lex]

I need to play on the server more >.> It's been ages since I've logged in, I know.

BUT, I've also finally made my own separate account so that my fiance and I can play together and do you know how tiring it is to have to re-do everything and start all over?

ANYWHO.

I need some help. My main is alllmost lvl 57 DRG, and I still pretty much have no clue what I'm doing other than the main combos my fiance taught me: Start off with Heavy Thrust + Ring of Thorns (is that an actual combo? Because sometimes the dotted line pops up around the latter, and sometimes not), then Impulse Drive/Disembowel/Chaos Thrust, then True/Vorpal/Full Thrust, throwing in Leg Sweep between True & Vorpal.

Of course I use the other stuff that takes longer to recover/reuse during boss fights like Phlebotomize, Blood for Blood, Keen Flurry, Power Surge, and Bloodbath, but I'm sure I'm not using them at appropriate times.

And then there's everything else... My jumps and things like Dragonfire Dive, Spineshatter Dive, Jump, and whatnot..

I don't want to be just an average/borderline shitty dragoon.. I want to be really good at it.

Help?

Oh good lord!

OK NEVER use heavy thrust -> ring of thorns ever, unless you're fighting large mobs and even then use it once then spam Doom Spike because it's so much better (it's a straight line attack, find the best angle to hit the most enemies then use it).

Now this is going to change when you hit 60, but this is the basic Dragoon combo:

Impulse Drive - Disembowel - Chaos Thrust (DoT/ Damage) (Combo 1)
True Thrust - Vorpal Thrust - Full Thrust (Damage Dealing) (Combo 2)

The "main mechanic" up to 50 is keeping up Heavy Thrust at all times (it's a damage buff). You also have a debuff (Phlebotomise) that you want to keep up at all times, and you want to keep your two DoT's (Disembowel and Chaos Thrust) up at all times. The basic old rotation is:

Heavy Thrust - Combo 1 - Disembowel - Combo 2 - Heavy Thrust - Combo 2 - Disembowel - Combo 1 - Heavy Thrust - Combo 2 - Disembowel - Combo 2 etc etc

So it's just a matter of using Combo 1, Combo 2, Combo 2 and in between each alternating between Heavy Thrust and Disembowel. Full thrust at that point is your strongest moves with all DoT's/Debuffs/Buffs up, and Life Surge gives a guaranteed crit, so you use Life Surge prior to Full Thrust.

All of the moves I've described are known as "GCD" (Global Cooldown) moves, which means they're all on the same reset timer. Every other move (Life Surge, Power Surge, Invigorate, Blood For Blood, Cross Class moves, all 3 Jump Moves) are known as "off GCD" moves - you're supposed to use these in between GCD moves for maximum DPS.

Power Surge increases the damage of Spineshatter Dive and Jump, so always use Power Surge then one of those (all are off GCD), and always use them between GCD moves.

Internal Release - increases Crit Hit Rate, use whenever it's available
Blood For Blood - same deal as internal release.
Life Surge - Guaranteed Crit that heals you on next attack (always pop before your most powerful attack i.e. Full Thrust)
Invigorate - Restores 500TP (just use when needed)

In addition, you absolutely need Internal Release (cross class skill from Pugilist) for maximum damage.

Here is a good guide containing the maths and explanations for why this hits the max possible DPS.

So a good rotation would be:

Heavy Thrust [Internal Release] Impulse Drive [Blood For Blood] Disembowel [Power Surge] Chaos Thrust [Jump] Phlebotomise [Leg Sweep] True Thrust [Spineshatter Dive] Vorpal Thrust [Life Surge] Full Thrust [Dragonfire Dive] Heavy Thrust [Jump] True Thrust etc etc.

That's your Combo 1, Combo 2, Combo 2 alternating Heavy Thrust and Phlebotomise with all off-GCD moves used properly in between.

HOWEVER

You're going to hit 60, and it becomes so much more complicated because DRG's have a new mechanic called Blood of the Dragon. Blood of the dragon is another ability that we need to keep up as much as possible, and it adds a fourth move to the two combos, meaning that instead of

Heavy Thrust - Combo 1, Phleb - Combo 2, Heavy Thrust - Combo 2

it's

Heavy Thrust - Combo 1, Phlebotomise - Combo 2 (combo one and combo 2 have a 4th move).

It completely changes the off-GCD rotation too.

One of the most important things to bear in mind is that you get damage bonuses for certain moves based on which position you're hitting the enemy from. Heavy Thrust should be used from the Flank, Impulse Drive should be used from the Rear, etc. Read the description of the attack and it'll tell you. It used to be the case that if you didn't use heavy thrust from the flank you wouldn't get the buff, and if you didn't hit Impulse Drive from the rear it wouldn't trigger the combo, but they fixed that (tanks move enemies/ the enemies just decide to turn and it's horrifyingly annoying when you're trying to hit a positional).

It would be an essay to explain how the new rotation works (it's just keeping up Blood of the Dragon so that you can use the new "fourth" combo moves, but they're random proc positionals, and they up the Blood timer but using another off-GCD move called Geirskogul subtracts time from it so you're watching a timer and being mindful of mechanics while also trying to keep doing your rotation XD, it's a learning curve), so here are two videos:

EDIT:

This one might be better because it gives more explanation

 

[Joe]

Somebody mentioned Dragoon rotation and sent Lex into a frenzy.

Send help.

 

[Lex]

It's because I'm still "adjusting" to the new one.

And by "adjusting" I mean trying not to hate the fuck out of it.

And before anybody starts, no it's not that bad. The problem is that not only do you have to watch the timers yourself for proper Geirskogul placement between mechanics, it's that it's no longer wrapped up in a neat little bow ;-;. The previous rotation had reapplied Buffs/DoTs/Debuffs like exactly at the timers ran out, this one doesn't and that bugs the fuck out of my OCD.

Also Joe will tell you the number of times today I went "well my combo's fucked again" because some enemy disappeared or some shit.

 

[Cait Sith]

THANK YOU LEX!

I'm still practicing on this and getting the hang of it, but you've been a tremendous help.

I really appreciate it! <3

 

[Lex]

Good to hear, just practice on a target dummy at your FC house, then practice in trials to get used to it.

You SHOULD learn the level 50 rotation because if you do any content that's not Heavensward (i.e. levelling/ level 50/ trials roulette) you need to revert to the old one since you don't have access to the new skills.

In my experience it takes about a day to adjust to it - my advice is just set it up the easiest way possible on your hotbars so your 1-2-3 combos are methodical, blast it for one day (and it'll feel fairly uncomfortable to change from whatever routine you were in before), then when you come back the following day you'll have it down and feel like a pro. Set it all up, jump in at the deep end and practice, then take a break and come back and it'll be second nature.

Keep in mind that the rotation changes with patches if they change skills, so keep an eye on that too. Fracture for example used to be a really useful cross-class skill for DRG and now it's shit.

Make sure you level a PUG to get Internal Release.

 

[Miscreant]

jesus the new ballad is stupid

As in Thordan Ex?

I love it, it's my 2nd favourite fight of 3.0

How is everyone finding the new patch?

I'm kind of disappointed my self, the new 24 man raid has to be the easiest yet and there is next to no Alliance based mechanics. We used to get parts where Alliance A has to do this and B that etc, out side of tanking things away from each other there really isn't much.

Diadem was fun at the start, but its just a massive zerg really, was hoping for more exploration.

I liked the lack of fetch quests in the story, but it was so short, like less than two hours of gameplay.

Thordan Ex and the new emotes hairstyles (quality of life stuff) were really the only saving grace for me.

The new dungeons are ok, nothing really new there, but they aren't bad.

I'm a little bit gutted about it, a five month wait for what doesn't feel like much.


Oh yeah I made a new FC Website the other week, what do you guys think to it (I haven't made it mobile friendly yet)

http://www.infamous90k.com

 

[Lex]

I agree about 3.1, I'm super shocked with how little there actually is in it. This is the first patch I can think of where there hasn't been a trial (a new story battle) - given that they're my favourite part of this game (the primals specifically) outside of raids I'm disappointed. There really is just far less content in this one patch than there were in any of the 2.x patches. The average there was two new trials + one extreme, three dungeons, hours of MSQ's and just lots of new shit/ gear/ new relic step.

Don't get me wrong, I've got lots to do because I've only started playing again after getting my character to 60 pre-Alexander and afk-ing from it for a long time, but I really hope they revert to 3-month patch cycles with more content.

It could be that the wait was longer for less with 3.1 purely because the team needed a break after the massiveness that is Heavensward.

 

[Joe]

If you look at the patch notes you'll notice an overwhelming amount of qol updates this patch from graphical options to the dressing room as well as all the supplemental content. That's what's important to me and personally this was the best patch I've experienced.

I definitely agree that Void Ark is really easy but at the same time I'm kind of glad. I'm having flashbacks to people who would constantly wipe on the later parts of World Of Darkness. For an investment of near an hour for the 24-man raids I really don't want to be wasting so much time over and over again. There's already difficult content in the game that requires co-ordination. I wish there were more Alliance mechanics though.

 

[Miscreant]

I love the QoL updates, but after a five month drought of no new content I kind of need more than QoL updates to keep the game interesting, the lack of a Relic quest and an 8 quest long story line are a real killer for me. Thordan Ex instead of a Primal was fine as it's a really well designed fight and I honestly didn't find Bismark or Ravana that interesting.

Luckily we get the new Relic quest before Christmas but I don't think that alone is enough to keep me going for another 3-4 months. My group should be clearing Alexander Savage pretty soon, I imagine after that I'm not going to have much reason to log on until 3.2.

 

[Cait Sith]

Good to hear, just practice on a target dummy at your FC house, then practice in trials to get used to it.

You SHOULD learn the level 50 rotation because if you do any content that's not Heavensward (i.e. levelling/ level 50/ trials roulette) you need to revert to the old one since you don't have access to the new skills.

In my experience it takes about a day to adjust to it - my advice is just set it up the easiest way possible on your hotbars so your 1-2-3 combos are methodical, blast it for one day (and it'll feel fairly uncomfortable to change from whatever routine you were in before), then when you come back the following day you'll have it down and feel like a pro. Set it all up, jump in at the deep end and practice, then take a break and come back and it'll be second nature.

Keep in mind that the rotation changes with patches if they change skills, so keep an eye on that too. Fracture for example used to be a really useful cross-class skill for DRG and now it's shit.

Make sure you level a PUG to get Internal Release.

Yes. I didn't know about PUG, so I've gotta pick it up & level it this afternoon/evening/tonight.

I'm defo gonna use the dummies too.

I'm almost to L60 (halfway to 59 now) cuz my fiancé is kind of rushing me to finish 3.0/3.1 storyline. so that I can do Diadem runs with eoff over the weekend.

There's a LOT of old content I need/want to clear too that I was too lazy to do back when it was new: Levi & Titan Ex, the coils (I've done up to Turn 4, I -think-), & a couole other things. Heh.

 

[ForceStealer]

I don't know how obsessively I've monitored by Dragoon rotation exactly. But it's reassuring to know I managed to at least approximate it myself. And I always had the pugilist skills because I thought that was the secondary class for Dragoon because it was in the beta and I didn't know they had changed it when the full release came out.

 

[Lex]

@Nox - be aware that Diadem runs require an iLvl of 179 so you'll have to blast roulettes and newer content if you want to get up that high (Alexander is your best bet when you hit i170).

I've been using the parser again but it's causing framerate drops which is bizarre.

 

[Lex]

Finally got around to getting all the primal mounts, which means I got Kirin. Kirin is beautiful and plays the prelude while you ride <3

 

[Joker]

FIRST 60 WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

 

[Miscreant]

Finally got around to getting all the primal mounts, which means I got Kirin. Kirin is beautiful and plays the prelude while you ride <3

Damn I've had it for a couple of weeks but have mount music turned off, time to turn it back on.

I saw you recruiting for a levi pony farm the other day, I would have joined but I was half asleep by then.

FIRST 60 WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Now the real fun begins

 

[Lex]

Levi was my last pony, and I got it shortly after I saw you floating around in Idyllshire. I'm glad you didn't join because we did lootmaster order of joining and one of the people who joined hadn't read the PF description even though I listed the order as soon as we were in the instance.

The pony dropped first kill, I took it and he went "Oh sure just take it for yourself" then half the group were like "dude it's lootmaster order of joining" and he was furious and left, and since he was the tank half the group dropped. I tried to chase him up via PM and get him to come back, I stuck around for two hours until 1am but by that time there were just three of us left and two people left. I felt pretty terrible but it wasn't my fault :/

I did say to all of them to add me and give me a shout if they want to farm ponies in future and I'll help them out. That's all I can do really.

 

[Miscreant]

Oh I would have just carried on without the Tank, you don't really need them as long as you have a stun for the add. When I was farming for mine we just two manned it, the damage isn't high so I could tank the head on my Scholar.

Heres a video of us two manning it Sch+War

http://www.twitch.tv/amiscreant/v/24372732

 

[Joe]

SCH master race