Honestly, we can now script a dummy rotation with almost perfect accuracy, ability by ability. The Dispatch/V.Throw proc is the only somewhat questionable ability, and that has such a large window for use that it's variable should be pretty minimal. Gone are the days of "priority," we now have a static rotation that will require some (eventually) simple in-the-field adjustments depending on the fight.

I would expect it to be: MS > PB > OS > BS > MS > 3 focus gen/neutral abilities > OS > PB > BS > Dispatch > MS. I'm figuring in my head, so timing might be off a bit, but you are looking at 3 Plasma Brands before it resets to the beginning. Obviously that Dispatch is the wild card, but that looks to be the ideal spot for it. You could use that simple rinse and repeat approach, but it means delaying Impale/OS and Scream/Storm each time.

Lifting - Guardian - Vigilance - 3006 78 OH, 75 Belt/Bracers, DG relic (yes, I still rock the old school), rest 72s. Been back for all of 3 days, so still relearning the game/class, but it works to get Vig/Veng on the board to start. Definitely need to smooth out the execute phase and get better uptime on Plasma Brand.

I'm going to have to reintroduce myself to the dummy, because it feels like there is something that I am missing that I used to know, and until it appears on my screen, I don't know that I can identify it. It seems that, generally, Shatter wins, but there are situations where you V.Throw > Impale. The next GCD will see both Scream and Shatter free. You have two stacks for Scream already, and if you pop Shatter first, then your next Scream will only have 1 stack. In this scenario, you would want to go Scream > Shatter, because you know V.Throw won't be up for the next cycle. Well, unless you stocked that V.Throw and used it in it's final seconds, then it could proc as soon as 5 seconds later, which would be in time for the next cycle, and in that case, you would want to go Shatter > Scream, because you'll have V.Throw > Impale for the next Scream (and Shatter > Impale for the one following). There are so many if's and but's to be looked at and evaluated, that I don't know if a hard and fast answer exists.

The gist of the conversation was essentially what it seems most folks here have figured out: Shatter parses the highest of the three, even when prioritizing the Impale/Scream pairing, so it makes sense that you try to get Shatter's effective cooldown time as close to 12 seconds as possible, meaning it gets priority over everything except a natural Ravage. Edit: A lot of the parsing and spreadsheeting that I did before I left has gone away, as have many of my notes. So, I don't have the actual documents that I made while doing a bunch of theory crafting. Thus, anything that I have said should not be considered gospel until vetted by someone with more recent experience and documentation to support (read: I'm doing a lot of it from memory, which is a faulty tool at times, so I may be wrong on specific points).

I thought we had hashed out the Scream/Storm vs Shatter/Plasma Brand debate quite some time ago, but that may have just been an internal conversation amongst a few players, I don't recall. Also going to echo this: The whole zero crit argument is tired. For dummy parsing it is the way to go, because you can just keep going until you get a crit rate that outshines what your would expect with zero crit. For raids, you work by the numbers. That 34 bonus damage from 150 power (it is still .23 BD per 1 power, yes?) is out-performed by the 3% (2.92%?) crit rate increase, assuming that your gear performs as expected. Of course, there is always the potential for a result that is outside of expectations that would allow the zero crit build to outshine the 150-200 crit build, as Rydarus mentioned; but that is an aberration, not an expectation.

Another suggestion I would make is to not rehash the Juggernaut questions. Those answers have yet to be delivered on, and by returning to them (specifically the Ravage/Master Strike question), it implies that is the only thing that we want to see addressed. After all, they did imply, if not outright say, that they were keen to adjust the RNG nature of Ravage/Master Strike: Instead of rehashing our complaint on the topic, we should just keep hammering this answer home to them until they do it. If you must return to the Ravage tree, then build off of this answer and make an argument against the "lower highs" mentioned in their answer.

While I get where you're going with these questions, the wording allows for a response such as: A1: Yes A2: No A3: Yes I would suggest writing questions that demand thought-out and meaningful answers.

Certainly. Admittedly, I'm not officially back yet. I'm at a bit of crossroads in FFXIV, and I'm torn over where I want to do my raiding.

I would prefer to play Lift, but am game to run Sniper, Guardian, Sentinel, or Sorc. If you know my name, then I don't need to sell myself. If you don't, then I'm not sure I want to sell myself.

Please tell me Carl is going to write the Vengeance guide.

They did say it was "high-priority" ... back in August.

If you parse on a dummy long enough, even with zero crit, you are eventually going to run into a lucky parse where you crit way above what you should (I remember a Jugg pre-2.0 that liked to boast about how amazing he was, and used a parse with 61% Impale crit rate as his proof). In this rare instance, your higher power rating will come out ahead. But, because you have such low crit rating, the chances of you parsing with high crit rates consistently is slim. On the other hand, stacking a little bit of crit will increase your chance to reach higher crit rates in parses. The downside is that crit is unpredictable, so you run the risk of having a poor run of crits. In that instance, having sacrificed power for crit is going to hurt you a bit, as your base damage is lower. I don't know where we stand in 78 gear w.r.t. crit chance from strength, so I can't speculate on what amount of crit I would consider running in my kit, but at the 72-tier, I found that I generally parsed higher in raids with about 150-175 crit rating. Of course, I did have some fights where I had terrible crit, and those fights would have been better served by a full power suit.

Why must we decide? Can't we have both?

I know I mentioned it prior to the release of 78 tier gear, but for dummy parsing only, full power is the way to go. A full power / zero crit suit increases the top-end potential of a parse. The odds of achieving that potential, however, is diminished due to the low crit rating. More crit means better odds of reaching the ceiling, but sacrifices power, which lowers the ceiling. If you have infinite amount of tries at parsing on a dummy, then run full power and keep going until the crits line up together for you... they will eventually. For actual content/raiding, I personally preferred to run a moderate amount of crit in my gear, but that is purely anecdotal; as no two fights were exactly the same, it's impossible to compare two and determine that the crit rating is what made the difference between two numbers.

So I went through some of your post history to try and find out who you are and why you think I'm current on content. I got bored and stopped after finding your Sniper's name, so I'll just ask outright: Who are you? I am not "up to date" by any stretch. I left prior to clearing the last NiM raids, and have done all of 1 boss in the new content. You are correct in that my comment about Soa was a joke. That said, I did ask a pseudo-serious question that has been ignored.

What changed to make Vengeance the "premier" single target PvE spec? It may be intended that way, but through the last NiM patch, this was not the case. Rage parses lower on a dummy than Vengeance, sure, but in a raid fight (specifically talking S&V/TfB since those are the last HM/NiM raids I did), the disparity shrinks. Rage actually often beat out Vengeance in ST damage for a number of fights.

This is the Juggernaut board. Worded it differently, but it is there.

The training dummy simulates an Operations boss. They have a base 10% defense, meaning you have a 10% miss rate at 100% accuracy. All of our other attacks have a base 100% accuracy, so you stack them to 110% to overcome the base 10% on the dummy/boss.

It's up to RNG on which way is better. If you get Rampage, leading with Ravage was correct. If you don't, then bleeds are the way to go. But as you say, fight mechanics play a role, as well. I don't know the DF/DP bosses, so I can't speak to the ideal for them. In general, my ideal opener looks something like: S. Throw Leap/Enrage Ravage Shatter Impale Scream Ravage V.Throw If things are going my way, then it goes into (with filler where appropriate): Sunder Impale Scream Shatter Ravage

I always go with the 3 GCD rule after Rampage procs. If you wait until 6 seconds, then your Ravage ends at 9, which is when you can proc your next one. If you do 3 GCDs (4.5 seconds), Ravage, then use V.Throw (or other filler) to clip the end of Ravage, then your next ability has the chance to proc Rampage (I know in a perfect world, this would actually put us at ~8.9 seconds, but latency is reliable). In the long run, it's no different than your approach, assuming the next ability after Ravage in your method is always Impale/Shatter.

Don't do it, it's a trap! In all seriousness, Hadyn pretty much covered it. Don't participate if you don't want to, but why have the forums if we aren't going to use them to discuss all aspects of our class, including things that people feel could/should be improved?

So which one of y'all lets me sit at the entrance afk while you do your thing, then provides me loot upon completion? I mean, I'm pretty bad and it would make the whole thing easier if I didn't have to actually do anything at all. And what's the going rate for a NiM Soa kill?

First and foremost, you don't really start to see the roles define themselves until later in the game. Don't let your level 16 experiences discourage you. Work through the story, learn your abilities as they come, and get a feel for what they do. As you start to gain more abilities, you'll be able to more effectively tank content such as Flashpoints. It's hard to have a discussion about tanking when you are limited to the context of low-level abilities. Keep leveling up, have some fun, and learn how to use the abilities that you gain as you level effectively. If you are still having issues when you get to the higher levels and have unlocked most of your repertoire, that would be the time to solicit help. With this being your first MMO, I would encourage you to learn it as you go, instead of having someone hold your hand through the learning process.

It's not abdicating, and the person who posted this thread seems to have been just as ignorant on the topic. They made it clear at the start of this whole thing that a Class Rep would serve "one term." Your "term" was served at the conclusion of the Juggernaut Q&A session back in September. If they get around to Juggernauts again (remember, they still have the mirror classes for those that didn't go in the first round to do), and they decide to abide by the guidelines that they laid out at the start, then they would/should be soliciting a new Rep.