What does Impact do that makes it a suitable opener for RDM? I remember look at the guide a while back and thinking Verflare and Verholy would be the ones which add the more high level pressure on one the spot decisions in final rotation.
Anyone got some useful guide on how to play the Dragoon now in 4.0? I'm advancing the story without caring much but of course eventually I'll come to a wall.
Wonderful game btw.
DRG is probably the easiest job to play in the game. I'm not just saying that because I'm playing it and I am the scrubbiest player ever. I dunno how far you are, but early rotation for DRG is basically just hit attacks and do damage. Later when you have actual combos the important things to keep in mind would be:
- Always have Heavy Thrust up, because it buffs all your attacks. If it's going off, after the end of whatever combo you are doing, immediately use Heavy Thrust again.
- Once you have Disembowel, always open attacks to a new enemy with Impulse Drive -> Disembowel. This makes the enemy take more damage to all your piercing attacks.
- Once Disembowel is active, if you have Chaos Thrust, move behind the enemy if able to maximize damage with it as a finisher on that combo. Then Cycle the True Thrust -> Vorpal Thrust -> Full Thrust combo repeatedly until Disembowel and/or Heavy Thrust wears off.
- Use Life Surge before using Full Thrust if available.
- Once you reach the point where you have Blood of the Dragon, activate it just before you use Chaos Thrust in the first opener, then immediately use Wheeling Thrust. This will extend Blood of the Dragon further. At this point if available you should use Geirskogul for extra damage, and let it start a cooldown, unless you are expecting a need for AOE in the fight very shortly, then hold it. Whatever the case, continue with the Full Thrust combo after this, and end with Fang and Claw to continue extending Blood of the Dragon. When Heavy Thrust has run out, use it and then follow up with the Chaos Thrust combo instead since it's about time to refill Disembowel anyway.
- For Wheeling Thrust, you do extra damage from the back. For Fang and Claw you do extra damage from the side. So keep in mind positioning when doing it. Pretty easy if someone is tanking for you. Irrelevant if no one is tanking. In which case maybe just throw up True North to maximize damage since it negates positioning.
- Throughout all of the above, remember to use Jump and Spineshatter Dive between your global cooldown attacks when available. For the opener, wait until Blood of the Dragon is active before using them, since BotD enhances their damage. You might want to save Dragonfire Dive until you need it to AOE adds, or use it anyway for extra damage, depending on the fight.
- When dealing with a lot of enemies you just want to clear with AOE, use Blood of the Dragon + Geirskogul, and the spam Doom Spike -> Sonic Thrust over and over. If you're lower level and this makes no sense to you, just spam Doom Spike. Recover TP with Invigorate.
- If you have Battle Litany always use it to give everyone extra crit. If there are multiple dragoons, and someone else is using Battle Litany, you can ignore this, since it doesn't stack.
- Try to have Blood for Blood up at the points where you are doing the most damage.
- You should probably have a place on your hotbar for Bloodbath, and activate it if you're taking damage and don't have quick heals on the way. It helps mitigate damage quite a bit.
- Leg Sweep is also useful to have as a cooldown skill to go whenever you need to quickly stun an enemy or if you don't have jumps available anyway.
I think that about covers it until lvl64 or so, at which point you should always combo Fang and Claw into Wheeling Thrust or vice versa for the end of any combo set under BotD. Beyond that, I'm not qualified to give any advice because I'm not there yet.
