Spirit Surge, a proposal.
Let me preface this by saying I am grateful for the dev team bolstering Wyvern defenses and stats as of late. Indeed Wyverns are a great deal stronger and resilient than they used to be. The problem with Wyvern survivability is less about the damage the Wyvern takes and more about the Call Wyvern recast. It's understandable that the recast is 20minutes, that's fine and I'm okay with that because indeed Wyverns are hard to fell. They have higher HP than players, take -40% damage from most damage types, Spirit Link is extremely potent and imparts a powerful and long lasting Regen, Steady Wing is great.
Now, with that out of the way let's proceed to the major problem. Having played DRG for 9 years let me say that up until recently Wyvern would often be killed by being hit by powerful AoE's. With the last few years of updates, this is rarely the case. The most common reason for a Wyvern being felled in combat is from the Dragoon being killed. Let's say a DRG uses Call Wyvern before entering a Fracture. On the first NM, a bad pull on the first NM occurs, the DRG dies because everyone is scrambling about. Now the DRG is crippled for the next 20minutes, no because of his inability to keep his Wyvern alive, but from himself being killed.
Let's look at Spirit Surge for a second. It's a mixed bag SP ability that gives a bunch of effects. When the Wyvern is not alive, Spirit Surge cannot be activated. Prior to the release of the new SP abilities, DRG's original concept for an SP2 ability was "Rouse Wyvern". This ability, which was the precursor to "Fly High" granted the Wyvern 60 seconds of complete damage immunity, increased potency of Breaths, shortened recasts for Restoring Breath and Smiting Breath. Now many of Dragoons headaches resulting from Wyverns dying prematurely due to the Dragoon itself being defeated can be alleviated with the following. On to the actual proposal:
Make "Spirit Surge", Dragoon's SP1 ability a dual-action SP ability.
1) If the Wyvern is present, the DRG receives the usual buffs that they get now from using Spirit Surge, but the sole change here is that upon using Spirit Surge, in addition to jump timers being set to 0, Call Wyvern is also set to 0. This would allow Dragoons to Call Wyvern immediately after Spirit Surge wears off and not be at a disadvantage after using their SP ability. Warriors don't suffer -100% critical hit rate after Mighty Strikes, Monks don't receive a Slow effect after Hundred Fists, why should Dragoon be without a Wyvern after Spirit Surge? (Spirit Surge is not even that strong compared to Mighty Strikes or Hundred Fists, so why should it incur a drastic penalty of killing the Wyvern without resetting the Call Wyvern ability? The penalty isn't commensurate with the effect. Other SP abilities are stronger than Spirit Surge but do not incur a drastic cost.
2) If the Dragoon does not have a Wyvern out, and Spirit Surge is used, instead of the ability being cancelled and receving a message that says "You must have a pet to use this ability", instead a Wyvern will be summoned! But it will be in enhanced state exactly like Rouse Wyvern! For situations where a Dragoon's Wyvern was killed prematurely and the Dragoon has a long recast to wait, they can simply use Spirit Surge to override the recast timer, the Wyvern will be summoned but be impervious to damage for 60 seconds, deal increased damage with attacks and breaths, have a powerful haste effect and Restoring Breath and Smiting Breath will have a short 5-10s recast.
Allowing Call Wyvern to be refreshed like Jumps are refreshed when Spirit Surge is activated with a Wyvern present will remove the stern penalty that Spirit Surge carries. No other job is incapacitated for 20minutes after using their SP ability except Dragoon. Additionally, if the Wyvern is dead, Spirit Surge can be used and instead of the Dragoon being powered up, the Wyvern is powered up and Call Wyvern is reset as well. Given the 'Spirit'/'Soul' dualistic shared link that Dragoons share with their Wyverns storyline-wise, I think this would be a very apropos adjustment for Dragoon and mitigate the problem of Call Wyvern being too long a recast, and the frustration of being without a Wyvern for 20 minutes because I died in the first 30 seconds of a battlefield due to someone else's mistake.