Play Without Rotations

[somethingbetter.7819]

Hi Guys, I know this might be unpopular but please don't be toxic on me. I have played the game since launch on and off, have completed the expansions and living world and have 100% world completion. I've been able to complete this with basic knowledge on event mechanics, positioning and my chosen class. 

I want to move into other game content such as fractals but I have always been put off by the need for rotations which would ruin the fun for me. I really respect those who have the patience and discipline to memorise rotations and then implement these on the fly but that isn't the kind of player I am. Am I just locked off from this kind of content because I don't like that style of gameplay? 

Does anyone have any advice on how I can continue to progress with the game without using rotations? Is there a class which is less reliant on this? 

[TashaFoxx.7862]

Vindicator has pretty much no rotation. You enable the extra damage thingy on Assassin stance and then just autoattack+greatsword 2,5. And dodge. A lot.

Condi mech is mostly clicking stuff off cooldown.

[the krytan assassin.9235]

You should be fine for like 98% of the instanced PvE content depending on the build/class you want to play. The average pug is only able to get like ~60-70% of their build potential anyways, so if you're not playing fully optimal (due to not using a strict rotation) you'd fit perfectly in with the rest of the puggies. 

There are a couple especs you want  to avoid if you dont want a strict rotation: soulbeast, catalyst, chronomancer, power virtuoso, Tempest, Weaver (xcept for FA), deadeye and berserker. 

Apart from that most of the boonsupport also require a certain amount of rotation to keep the Boons up. Quite alot of the boonsupports are changing in the upcoming balance patch, so its quite difficult to determine to what degree they will require a specific rotation to work properly. HAM is currently the only healer that has no strict rotation at all and for boon dps alacdps mech and quickness harbinger probably offer the most freedom in terms of rotation. 

That being said, it is very important to still finish your autoattack chains and not interrupt your skills. Properly chaining your skills often offers a bigger dps increase then just focusing on a skill rotation. Weapons with either a long autoattack cast time or a chain autoattack skill tend to be less forgiving in that regard (GS on guard, hammer& GS on Spb, GS on vindi, sword& staff ele, GS Reaper). 

If you want a very strong reliable relatively easy build without a strict rotation for instanced PvE id recommend one of these to start with: Condi virtuoso, Condi mechanist, power Reaper, power spellbreaker and healalac mech. 

[Cuks.8241]

You can start t1 fractals without much if any advanced knowledge how to max dps. Those are easy and meant as an entry level. You can also do most strikes the same way.

Maybe just try out on the test golem how much dmg you actually do. Just to see in which ballpark are you. If you are above 15k dps (just something from the top of my head) with all boons you're pretty much good to start any content including first raid wings. Maybe youll get flamed but from my experience that shouldnt really happen. Just dont join groups that have experience requirements. The more youll play, the better you will be. Running arcdps to check yourself will help so you have a real encounter benchmark where you stand so you can improve and go for harder encounters.

As for rotations. Some professions are very forgiving and most dmg just comes from auto attacks and weaving in a few big abilities. Some are demanding and missing rotation can be a big dps dip. I'm sure youll find some low effort builds out there for the profession you like.

Also often rotations look scary on paper but are very intuitive in reality. If you play for 10 years you most likely know your classes well. You might be better than you think. 

[REMagic.8937]

You can do everything in this game without ever being good at the rotation.

 

[BadLuck.8456]

Forget rotation. Almost all of the rotations really consist of "big dps window" and then the highest damage filler while waiting for your dps combo to come back. You can replace the filler with auto attacks and still do decent damage. Some classes, like the krytan assassin.9235 said, rely more on rotation because they need to upkeep some damage buff during the whole fight. Berserker needs to be berserking, willbender needs to keep weaving in virtue casts for their damage stacks, catalyst needs to keep up their dps stacks. But also some of those are easier, like harbinger technically needs to keep up its blight stacks but that's as easy as going into shroud whenever you can (which you want to do anyways because that's where your high damage skills are) and tossing a couple elixirs between shrouds.

You don't follow rotation mindlessly in real fights. You use your big damage skills/combos when you can in between mechanics. Most people lose dps in real fights because they A) Don't know the fight mechanics and are too busy with that. B) Don't finish their auto attack chains (think of this as one LONG skill cast instead of 3 small ones, interrupt it before the end and you were better off doing almost anything else in that time) C) Don't know what their damage skills or combos are so they hit everything including skills that are lower damage than auto attacks or without the setup of the combo like their biggest damage skill but only when they DON'T have their damage buff going. D) Wrong gear. Its a BIG dps loss on a power damage build to not be at 100% crit chance with fury/food/util. E) You and your boon provider are out of sync and you are missing quick/alac/fury through most of the fight.

 

So my advice is to learn your build. Watch the snowcrows benchmark video but also check out some low intensity builds for the same spec/class. Figure out where your DPS modifiers are and how to maintain them. Do you need to be covered in boons? Above 90% hp? Behind the target? Then figure out your damage skill/combo. Is it dragon slash? Is it guardian symbol and then spin? Then make sure you are doing your damage skill/combo as often as possible but ONLY when your damage modifiers are up.

You'll naturally start improving when you can start thinking "Oh I'm about to damage combo but the boss is at 20% defiance. I can hold my big damage for a few seconds until it's broken" or "My damage combo is coming up but we're about to be pushed away with a mechanic. I either need to be able to get it off before that or hold it so my damage buff cooldowns are ready when we can hurt the boss again."

You'll also need to know this so that when you have to drop a utility/weapon to bring cleanse, reflect, pull, cc, whatever you know which one to drop to preserve the most of your dps. For example, Reaper can drop staff and/or You Are All Weaklings without losing much. But it Reaper dropped Greatsword or Well of Suffering their damage is going to drop hard.

[AlexndrTheGreat.8310]

I would look into builds that have less of a strict rotation and look at builds that are more focused on using “highest skill priority”.

A lot of condi builds or classes with a greater focus on sustained damage rather than big burst windows typically follow a pattern of using higher priority / damaging skills first. You typically don’t need to fit your abilities into a burst window so that makes them easier to play.

Examples in my opinion would be condi scourge, shortbow soulbeast, rifle mechanist (no kits), condi firebrand. These builds typically start their opener with:

- Use their most damaging abilities first

- Lower damaging abilities next

- Whenever an ability comes off cd use it

- Fill the gaps in your rotation with auto attacks

An example for a basic Shortbow Condi Soulbeast “rotation” (1 Shortbow, utility skills are Sharpening Stones, Vulture Stance, Viper’s Nest, One Wolf Pack)

- Use all your utilities

-Shortbow 5

-Shortbow 2 and 4

-Merged pet skills

-Auto attack until things come off CD

There’s still some min-maxing that can be done to maximize your damage, like using another weapon set and adding weapon swapping, using Shortbow 5 to proc a damage bonus before your “burst”, dodging for Light on your Feet buff, but for just starting to learn things like fractals and strikes it’s whatever, you can learn that later once you get more comfortable with the game.

[xellink.7568]

On 6/20/2023 at 10:16 PM, somethingbetter.7819 said:

 Does anyone have any advice on how I can continue to progress with the game without using rotations? Is there a class which is less reliant on this? 

Willbender.  High APM but no fixed rotation. There's a certain combo for sure. Esp condi willbender but power works as well. Power works better than condi but it's easier to hit higher numbers with condi if you don't care about contribution. I don't think this is affected by patch. 

There are some classes that thrive on autoattacks, like core symbolic hammer guardian. It's very popular when raids first came out and still very viable due to the 100% protection, 25 vuln, double group break stuns and stability, just a little short for CMs. This is getting buffed next patch though.

Thieves have high base autos as well, even if you scuff your stealth and lose backstab and flanking, the base auto is 26k. If you can't play m7s you can go 'be quick or be killed'. That's dagger 5 -> backstab spam with signets

Theres also spectre that does 33333 for it's rotation, then shroud 'rotation' which is short. Right now it functions with well spam for Alac, but come patch the rotation is going to be tight.

And druid heals I guess. they have to react to the environment and do mechanics, spam spirits on CD.

Power Alac mechanist is pretty chill. No complex rotations needed to actually raid and the Alac is reliable no matter what you do. Slight nerf on coming patch if you are not careful. 

Things will change next week though. More options to come.

[SlayerXX.7138]

On 6/20/2023 at 4:16 PM, somethingbetter.7819 said:

Does anyone have any advice on how I can continue to progress with the game without using rotations? Is there a class which is less reliant on this?

Virtuoso: Exotic Gear version, build that and you can just start blasting. The build almost Crit caps you with 59,24% base + 40% from fury =99,24% Crit. Crit is very important for the build so you always want 100% crit. If you get enough ascended pieces you can swap out some Rampager gear for Viper. If anything is unclear don't be shy about asking. Obviously there is still a "rotation" involved, but with a simplified build like that is just boils down to a priority list. F1 and F2 are stronger then the other F3 and F5 so use them first, when your blades are full. Press dagger 2 and sword 5 as soon as possible. And then, have fun!:)

Based on this snowcrow Build. If you get more familiar with instanced content you can look that up. But the build I posted is more then powerful enough for lower fractals.

[SponTen.1267]

Where are you getting the idea that you need to memorise rotations? Not judging you btw; I honestly would love to know where you're getting this from, because you can play all content without memorising any rotations.

Source: I recently crossed the 1600 hours-played mark and have never spent time memorising rotations. The only content in the game that I haven't spent much time in is Raids and Strikes; I'm only just starting them now. And even with them, the priority is to learn the mechanics and coordinate them with your group.

You will likely start to learn what order to use your skills as you play the game; just spend a little bit of time reading your skills as you go, and seeing how they work. As long as you're actually using your skills, and have a somewhat-functional build (ie. don't gear full Zealot's and then focus on Condi damage), then you'll be fine in 98% of PvE. Raids are harder for sure, but even then, you can get through them with suboptimal gear, build, and no memorisation of rotations, provided you coordinate and complete the mechanics.

So yeah, my advice is just: Give it a shot. If you're struggling, dying, not contributing in any way, then it's likely not to do with you not having memorised rotations. It's much more likely that you're not avoiding damage, or your build is too suboptimal, or you're just not making use of your skills.

Feel free to add/whisper/mail me if you'd like some guidance! I recently started taking first time Raiders and new players through some Raids, and despite none of us knowing what is going on, we're all having a blast and slowly getting through the content. I've even taken brand new and underlevelled players through some Dungeons and early Fractals just us two; yes, that means having 60% fewer players in our group than we're "supposed to". I believe in you 🙂

[The Boz.2038]

You can unlock at least ~75% of "top tier potential" without rotations or animation cancels (HOARK!) on all DPS classes. Hell, you can probably unlock 90% on some (Virtuoso, Mechanist, Daredevil).