Reintroduce Classic Dragoon Strategies

[AyinDygra]

As a short introduction, the first thought I ever had when I saw the list of jobs in FFXI was: "Great, I'll be a dragoon! They could wield spears and constantly jump instead of "attack" with the benefit of avoiding damage for a majority of the time; they could drain enemy HP/MP for their own, and had long reach, so they could attack flying enemies from the ground!"

Then I played FFXI, and almost everything I liked about several previous versions of the Dragoon was dashed to the rocks with that wyvern you had to keep alive and became a major focus of the job.

I still took Dragoon to level 90, but it's never been my favorite FFXI job, since it breaks with so many points of previous FF dragoon strategies and iconic abilities. It's always felt like a shadow of the job it *could* and *should* be.

In hopes that it will eventually recover these past FF concepts, I present my suggestions (without killing off the flying rat, SE seems to love blue rats... anyway...):


Pet Command: Dragon Flight (Wyvern Stance)
Duration: 5min
Recast: 1min
When you use any jump, your wyvern accompanies you into the air and keeps you in flight for up to 15sec, raising you higher and higher the longer you're in the air. When you descend from a higher altitude, you land with double the normal impact force. It is possible to descend sooner than 15sec with the "descend" command.
* This is the *key* element of Jumps that was present in past FF games, that is missing from FFXI.
* Requires your wyvern present.
* Reduces all jump recasts by 15sec.
* You are trading off normal attack rounds for the defensive ability of being completely out of range of enemy attacks.
* You are also out of range of all positive AoE-party abilities of your allies and cannot be targeted to cure.
* If you descend before the automatic 15sec duration, you only have a *chance* at double impact damage, higher the longer you remained in the sky. Descending at the end of 15sec always grants double damage.
* This keeps the wyvern in the sky with you, also out of AoE range.


Pet Command: Holy Crest (Wyvern Stance)
Duration: 5min
Recast: 1min
Fulfilling its role as a holy dragon, the wyvern takes on a protective role, instead of offensive. The wyvern flies higher into the sky, surrounded by the light of its holy crest (like a white, luminous runic gate). (wings stop flapping, outstretched)
* Requires your wyvern present.
* At this higher position, surrounded by its holy crest, it takes reduced damage.
* Its normal attacks are replaced with a "Regen" effect (AoE around the Dragoon) (at its attack rate, not regen tick rate)
* Every 30sec it can use a "Remove breath" of its own will. (not triggered)
* When the Dragoon uses weaponskills and casts spells, the Wyvern will still use breathes. Elemental Breathes are at reduced power, Healing Breathes are enhanced.


Pet Command: Dragon Heart
Level 30
Recast: 3min
Your wyvern can pierce through your enemy and drain its strength for its own.
(glowy transparent wyvern flies through enemy, drawing out red and blue orbs (like drain/aspir) as it returns to your side)
* Requires your wyvern present.
* Recovery of about Dragoon's Vitality x2 for HP and Mind x1 to heal MP.
* Twice as effective against dragons. (undead dragons simply give 0hp and 0mp, no damage)
* If the Wyvern's HP or MP are filled, any excess HP or MP goes to the Dragoon.
* When used as a subjob, this can heal any pet or Fellowship NPC, but the effect vs dragons is dropped.


Pet Command: White Draw
Recast: 5min
Wyvern restores MP to each party member equal to the level of the enemy.
(Makes use of the holy crest in the animation)
* Requires your wyvern present.
* Maximum MP restored to each party member is limited by the highest level of enemy in the game.
* Target does not need to have MP.


Job Ability: Dragonbreath Comet
Recast: 2 minutes
This jump attack is augmented by the elemental breath of the wyvern. The Dragoon jumps into the air where the Wyvern envelopes his polearm in elemental fire before he plummets toward his target like a comet.
* Requires your wyvern present.
* Must be wielding a polearm.
* Causes magic damage based on elemental breath.
* Damage is increased by Deep Breathing Merits (A new passive effect of having the merits)


Job Trait: Long Reach
Allows melee attacks against "flying" enemies, with polearms. These are enemies that are normally out of reach of normal auto-attacks. (Like Cuelebre, Ouryu, etc)

(also at tier V/VI, adds 10/15% bonus damage to flying enemies. This could extend to several enemies that only appear to be flying and levitating like Bees, Spheroids, Ahrimen, Imps, Puks, Bats, Birds, Flytraps, Flies, Ladybugs, Wamoura, Colibri, Yovra, Ghrah, Wanderers, Gears, Bombs, Clusters, Djinn, Pixies, Moogles, Enemy pet wyverns, and Dragons and Gargouilles that can switch between land and flying mode, when they're flying.)
Long Reach I: Level 30 - Deal 25% melee damage.
Long Reach II: Level 45 - Deal 50% melee damage.
Long Reach III: Level 60 - Deal 75% melee damage.
Long Reach IV: Level 75 - Deal 100% melee damage.
Long Reach V: Level 90 - Deal 110% melee damage.
Long Reach VI: Level 99 - Deal 115% melee damage.

[noodles355]

Dragoon as a job really doesn't need much fixing. It's pretty solid. Yeah it is very different now from other FF dragoons, but if you started adding all this stuff you suggest just to make it closer to previous versions, then you would end up overpowering the job.

[AyinDygra]

People throw that term out like candy these days -- "overpowered this" "overpowered that"... and I really don't see the justification.

You do realize the most powerful ideas presented each had drawbacks specifically to prevent "overpowered-ness"?

Do you know how many auto-attacks you'd miss staying in the air for 15 seconds, just for a double-damage jump? You'd miss at least two attack rounds depending on haste. Only doubled crits would really make up for the lost melee time. The whole thought is to return a key defensive ability of Dragoon (that also takes them out of range of beneficial effects, meaning they'd have to stay grounded for some things.) A smaller bonus from the stance, placing nearly all Dragoon's damage from their jumps, is reduced TP feed to enemies (especially bosses). I'd always keep my Dragoon in the "back row", jumping most of the time. Dragoons would be one of the first jobs chosen for meleeing bosses. (Plus, for the most part, they wouldn't have to fear the death of their wyvern due to AoE spam from most bosses)

I don't see Holy Crest ever becoming overpowered, since it completely removes the Wyvern's normal attacks to provide the regen. Dragon Heart is much less powerful than Chakra, since it's mainly for the Wyvern and it only benefits the Dragoon when they're keeping the wyvern healthy in the first place (for overflow healing) (Used in conjunction with Spirit Link to heal the Wyvern first, then using Dragon Heart to heal the Dragoon would be an interesting strategy that healers would welcome, I'm sure). White Draw is a small ability that gives solo dragoons who favor mage support jobs a way to recover a little MP every so often. (These abilities both draw on Freya's abilities from FF9: Reis' Wind and White Draw, with an FFXI twist, and Kain's "Holy Dragoon" class in FF4:The After Years.)

Dragonbreath Comet is a new jump, so technically it's a new source of TP, which *could* be a very powerful addition. Instead of making this a new jump, SE COULD implement it as a way to augment any existing jump with the elemental feature. The concept would be kept in tact without impacting that area of the job. Of course, it depends on how "overpowered" you think this is in the first place. Another alternative is to make "Dragonbreath Comet" only available for the duration of the "Dragon Flight" wyvern stance. This would emphasize the Dragoon's damage shifting to only damage from jumps, rather than melee auto-attacks.

Long Reach is similar to giving Dragoons a killer effect vs a certain category of monsters, without the intimidation rate. Being able to hit flying enemies is a very unique feature that fits Dragoons. I don't see this as overpowering either. It gives Dragoons the clear upperhand against other melee when facing enemies that like to fly out of melee range where only Ranged attackers and mages could otherwise contribute. This ability also keeps Dragoon in the same category as bow, boomerang, whip and spear ranged damage dealers of past games.

So, I fail to see any "overpowered" features here that couldn't be addressed easily. (you'll have to point out anything I missed as to your reasoning - so it can be addressed thoughtfully)

[Sotek]

Long Reach is similar to giving Dragoons a killer effect vs a certain category of monsters

You mean like Dragon Killer?

You are aware that Piercing weapons (aka Spears/Lances) already give a damage bonus against flying monsters, right? Giving an extra 115% damage would be 240% damage against flying monsters with absolutely no drawback. That's insanely overpowered and if you think any differently you're delusional.
Being able to deal damage on the handful of monsters that can physically go completely out of melee range wouldn't really bring anything to the table, nor make sense. I'd be OK with Jumps reaching them, but melee attacks? We're swinging a weapon the same size as almost any other two handed weapon, I don't buy it.

Do you know how many auto-attacks you'd miss staying in the air for 15 seconds, just for a double-damage jump? You'd miss at least two attack rounds depending on haste. Only doubled crits would really make up for the lost melee time. The whole thought is to return a key defensive ability of Dragoon (that also takes them out of range of beneficial effects, meaning they'd have to stay grounded for some things.) A smaller bonus from the stance, placing nearly all Dragoon's damage from their jumps, is reduced TP feed to enemies (especially bosses).

We already have Super Jump. Since FFXI has an enmity system (as well as a completely different combat system) classic Jump doesn't really work that well. You're suggesting a defensive stance that relies on Jumps that's only really good for avoiding AoE, you'd have to leave that on full time for it to be anywhere near as effective as it needs to be. A second Super Jump (which is no doubt coming come at Lv95) would be far more effective, unless you really think you can use two job abilities in time to avoid anything.

[AyinDygra]

Perhaps I didn't explain the features clearly enough because there are some misunderstandings being brought up.

I completely understand dragon killer and piercing damage bonus. Many of the monsters on that list do not fall into the categories affected by that those traits (piercing or dragon family). I was expanding it to include any monsters that "appear" to be flying.

Also, the Long reach trait is a minor trait, really, and starts out dealing only 25% (one fourth) of a full melee strike to a flying enemy that is currently "out of reach" due to "Flying" status. The maximum bonus from the trait is only 15% extra damage. It's not huge and overpowered, even when added to Piercing bonus (which does not apply to all of those flying monster families).

The defensive stance would clearly be used in advance of "needing" it for enemies that you know use AoE that you want to avoid. It would have no real impact on current dragoon gameplay, so there is no drawback to keeping it up, unless you want to use the Holy Crest wyvern stance. I don't see them being used in the same situations, so no real conflict or reason for the objection.

The weapon range feature is a job trait in several past FF games associated with Whips, Spears, Boomerangs and Bows due to rows, and it has an FFXI application in regard to a melee job specializing in fighting flying enemies... that would be Dragoon. Such traits from past FF games have been implemented in new ways in FFXI several times. Sure, we don't "need" it, but it fits the job nicely for its niche of fighting wyrms (who have a tendency to fly out of melee range constantly.) This would also allow other jobs to use the /drg sub to gain access to this trait at half-power melee attacks.

Thank you for bringing up what you saw as potential overpowered features.

[Andevom]

Frankly, I don't see how these abilities make the job more like a "classic FF Dragoon" considering most classic FF DRGs didn't do much outside of jump and fight with lances, and none of them ever utilized their wyverns/dragons.

So let's see what exactly is overpowered/unnecessary here:

Pet Command: Dragon Flight (Wyvern Stance)
When you use any jump, your wyvern accompanies you into the air and keeps you in flight for up to 15sec, raising you higher and higher the longer you're in the air. When you descend from a higher altitude, you land with double the normal impact force. It is possible to descend sooner than 15sec with the "descend" command.

Well this is already kind of met with Soul Jump, which does critical damage when your wyvern is present. The ability to disappear from battle for 15 seconds is kind of cheap, and can really screw over your other party members in certain situations where they need damage. This a concept that works in other FF games because you're...well, in control of the entire party and really just want to ensure survival. If you need to dodge an attack, that's what Super Jump is for.

Pet Command: Holy Crest (Wyvern Stance)
Duration: 5min
Recast: 1min
Fulfilling its role as a holy dragon, the wyvern takes on a protective role, instead of offensive. The wyvern flies higher into the sky, surrounded by the light of its holy crest (like a white, luminous runic gate). (wings stop flapping, outstretched)
* Requires your wyvern present.
* At this higher position, surrounded by its holy crest, it takes reduced damage.
* Its normal attacks are replaced with a "Regen" effect (AoE around the Dragoon) (at its attack rate, not regen tick rate)
* Every 30sec it can use a "Remove breath" of its own will. (not triggered)
* When the Dragoon uses weaponskills and casts spells, the Wyvern will still use breathes. Elemental Breathes are at reduced power, Healing Breathes are enhanced.

Even if your wyvern isn't doing damaging attacks, having a personal Super Regen/Erase factory with buffed up defense is pretty ridiculous.

Pet Command: Dragon Heart
Level 30
Recast: 3min
Your wyvern can pierce through your enemy and drain its strength for its own.
(glowy transparent wyvern flies through enemy, drawing out red and blue orbs (like drain/aspir) as it returns to your side)
* Requires your wyvern present.
* Recovery of about Dragoon's Vitality x2 for HP and Mind x1 to heal MP.
* Twice as effective against dragons. (undead dragons simply give 0hp and 0mp, no damage)
* If the Wyvern's HP or MP are filled, any excess HP or MP goes to the Dragoon.
* When used as a subjob, this can heal any pet or Fellowship NPC, but the effect vs dragons is dropped.

Kind of unnecessary given that there's Healing Breath and plenty of other ways to use Drain/Aspir.

Pet Command: White Draw
Recast: 5min
Wyvern restores MP to each party member equal to the level of the enemy.
(Makes use of the holy crest in the animation)
* Requires your wyvern present.
* Maximum MP restored to each party member is limited by the highest level of enemy in the game.
* Target does not need to have MP.

Doesn't seem like it'd heal you for much MP. I mean, it's not like I'd turn the ability down, but it's not really all that purposeful. You can use /RDM and use Refresh, get book Refresh, or use Atmas in Abyssea if you prefer the /mage route.

Job Ability: Dragonbreath Comet
Recast: 2 minutes
This jump attack is augmented by the elemental breath of the wyvern. The Dragoon jumps into the air where the Wyvern envelopes his polearm in elemental fire before he plummets toward his target like a comet.
* Requires your wyvern present.
* Must be wielding a polearm.
* Causes magic damage based on elemental breath.
* Damage is increased by Deep Breathing Merits (A new passive effect of having the merits)

As a new jump, this would be too much. We already have two damaging/TP building jumps. A third would be really unbalanced. As an augment to an existing jump, it's not needed. This is essentially combining a jump with Smiting Breath, so..you could just use the jump and the breath by themselves to get the same effect.

Job Trait: Long Reach
Allows melee attacks against "flying" enemies, with polearms. These are enemies that are normally out of reach of normal auto-attacks. (Like Cuelebre, Ouryu, etc)

A flying enemy that can't be damaged by normal attacks is so rare that this wouldn't have use, based on the description. Also it's kind of implausible. Ouryu, for example, flies up pretty damn high. Just having a polearm isn't going to be enough to reach that. But you also explain this:

Long Reach is similar to giving Dragoons a killer effect vs a certain category of monsters, without the intimidation rate. Being able to hit flying enemies is a very unique feature that fits Dragoons. I don't see this as overpowering either. It gives Dragoons the clear upperhand against other melee when facing enemies that like to fly out of melee range where only Ranged attackers and mages could otherwise contribute.

The fact that mages and ranged attackers can attack from a distance while other jobs can't is exactly why this would be unfair if a Dragoon could do it and no other melee class could. Again, it doesn't make sense considering a polearm isn't much longer than 6 or so feet.

[AyinDygra]

Frankly, I don't see how these abilities make the job more like a "classic FF Dragoon" considering most classic FF DRGs didn't do much outside of jump and fight with lances, and none of them ever utilized their wyverns/dragons.

I think a brief history lesson is in order.
FF1: (no dragoons)
FF2: Ricard is the last Dragoon: sword & spear wielding dragon riders. A wyvern can be equipped by Ricard. The Wyvern cast Blaze 7 when used in battle.
FF3: First use of Jump.
FF4: Kain, uses Jump. (He gets Double Jump and becomes a Holy Dragoon with white magic in the After Years sequel)
FF5: Dragoon gets Jump and Dragon Sword (Drain/Aspir ability)
FF6: Jump is available with a relic.
FF7: Cid's Limit breaks are Jump attacks, including "Dragon" that drains HP/MP.
FF8: Ward uses an anchor and for his limit break, he throws it into the air and rides it down like a jump attack.
FF9: Freya increases the Dragoon's list of abilities with Lancer (Drain HP/MP), Reis' Wind (regen), White Draw (restores MP to party from 0 to 2x enemy's level), Dragon Breath (our wyverns cover this), Luna (berserks enemies), 6 Dragons (one of 6 random possibilities), Cherry Blossom (AoE damage) and Dragon's Crest (deals damage based on how many Dragons you've slain in the game.) Freya also gains the "Long Reach" ability.
FFX: Khimari uses the Jump attack and Lancet (Drains HP/MP).
FFXII Revenant Wings: Jump, Dragon breaths, Dragonmend (restores HP and removes ailments from allies), the Character Llyud is a Dragoon with Jump and Lancet (drains HP)
FFTactics: Jump, and spear attacks can hit two tiles away (maintained in FFTA/2).
FFTacticsAdvance 1&2: Jump, Lancet (drains HP), various breath attacks, Wyrmtamer (causes weakened dragons to leave the battle) and Wyrmkiller (double damage to dragons) attacks.

Several themes can be traced throughout the series. These are the abilities that I think of when I try to describe Dragoon, as opposed to any other melee job. While "Jump" is the most iconic, there are several other key abilities that are missing in my memory of Dragoon, and even Jump doesn't keep the same strategic use in FFXI for avoiding damage.

Regarding Dragon Flight:

If you need to dodge an attack, that's what Super Jump is for.

Really, how often do HNMs do powerful AoE attacks that you want to dodge? Can you use your jumps to properly avoid all of these? Maybe once every 3 minutes... OK everyone, stop feeding it TP for 3 minutes while my timer resets... and how long do you actually stay in the air? Yeah... not strategically useful. Having 3 jumps that allow for precise timing of when you return to the ground, and give you time to jump before the attack goes off would be much more like the Dragoon of the past games (with a little more control.)

High Jump and Super Jumps' shedding enmity and having the enemy attack someone else is a little like the original jump effect, but taking hate from a tank isn't really the issue we're faced with as DD's with good tanks... it's the AoE that's the most dangerous. This is the tactical use of Jump from past boss battles:
Enemy readies big attack. > Jump > Enemy uses big attack. Misses. > Dragoon lands for big damage > repeat. (And in most normal battles, I usually continued jumping as my normal attack just to avoid needing to heal my Dragoon as often, since Jump could be used as often as their turn came up, not on 1minute+ timers)

Regarding Dragon Heart (Dragon Sword/Lancet):

Kind of unnecessary given that there's Healing Breath and plenty of other ways to use Drain/Aspir.

"Plenty of other ways" isn't how Dragoons did this in the past. Lancet/Dragon Sword is a key Dragoon ability (I don't care if the name has been used for the Dragoon 2hour in Japanese)... it's the effect that's important as a strategic element. Dragoons who are jumping and staying out of reach of most enemy attacks will still get hit sometimes, and when they're in the air, they can't be targeted by friendly abilities either. This can be used by the Dragoon on their own timing. I even made this wyvern-oriented, even though I hate the wyvern itself, just to keep it with the FFXI theme (SE likes to keep the focus of Dragoon on their wyvern for some strange reason I can't fathom), with the potential to fill its old role of healing the Dragoon.

Regarding White Draw:

Doesn't seem like it'd heal you for much MP. I mean, it's not like I'd turn the ability down, but it's not really all that purposeful. You can use /RDM and use Refresh, get book Refresh, or use Atmas in Abyssea if you prefer the /mage route.

Again, yes, there are other ways, but this is a utility ability that Dragoon has had. (I'm not super thrilled with this ability, since I never go with mage support jobs, but it's in the job's history, so I figured I'd include it, especially since there are many Dragoons who do use mage support jobs when solo.)

Regarding Long Reach:

A flying enemy that can't be damaged by normal attacks is so rare that this wouldn't have use, based on the description. Also it's kind of implausible. Ouryu, for example, flies up pretty damn high. Just having a polearm isn't going to be enough to reach that.

The fact that mages and ranged attackers can attack from a distance while other jobs can't is exactly why this would be unfair if a Dragoon could do it and no other melee class could. Again, it doesn't make sense considering a polearm isn't much longer than 6 or so feet.

It's not very common, this is true. This is also why it's more of a niche-complementary ability to emphasize the focus of the job on Dragon killing. (it directly counters a niche-ability of dragons) It's not a game-changing ability, but it has its uses. Dragoons aren't going to put Mages and Rangers out of the job just because they can hit flying enemies from the ground.

In past FF games, the "Long Reach" trait simply allowed targeting any enemy in any row, (or in flight in some games), from the ground, or back row without penalty or "out of range" missing. It hasn't "always" been a spear trait, but it has been in a few games (FF9/FFT) It fits Dragoon.

(also, I haven't seen wyverns fly "super high"... For example, in the CoP mission where we fought Ouryu, the first time he took flight I had to read the chat log to know he was "in the air", he was so close to the ground. Even if some wyverns do fly much higher (like Cuelebre), the trait would still be just fine, looking at past FF games where characters could stand on one side of the screen, take a step forward, shake their weapon, step back, and have their attack hit the enemy.)

As a general thought... I'm amazed at so much animosity toward these suggestions on this board of all places. It's not like I'm saying the job is broken... I'm just suggesting abilities from past FF games that I think are missing, strategically speaking.

(also, I haven't used many numbers, leaving all the balancing up to SE... so the whole concept of any of this being "overpowered" is strictly in your heads, regarding how much defense the wyvern would get in Holy Crest stance or how much healing the regen would provide or how much damage a certain ability would do.)

And I don't intend to be replying to every single post, I just feel I have to address and clarify a few key misconceptions early on, to avoid further exaggerations in the future.

[Thonuwan]

I am not against DRG getting some new things. In fact every time there is new information about job updates I look to see if DRG has gotten anything. I also think that DRG is a pretty balanced job that does what it does well. It likely isn't the most useful job in many situations but it can be helpful.

My personal preference has been that I enjoy how every Final Fantasy game has been independent from the other games. Some lore and abilities are shared to make things feel nostalgic but there was always the freedom to be completely unique. I am not upset that DRG in FFXI has lost some of the more recognizable abilities.

[Sotek]

Dragoon isn't at the bottom of the DD spectrum anymore, in fact it's pretty much at the top if you grab a Mythic (which is totally unreasonable so I wont mention it more than that). Only issue left is that the damn Wyvern is the weakest thing in existence. We don't need damage mitigation because we have hate mitigation, we already have a decent method to heal ourselves (and others) and Jumps are incredibly powerful already as both damage tools and TP tools, and going back the hate mitigation, Jumps do that which is technically what old Jumps did. Removing hate from yourself and thus not getting attacked is virtually the same as avoiding damage in a game that has no hate system. Avoiding AoE? Cry me a river that doesn't matter when you have a steady supply of Cures coming in, the only issue AoE brings is the Wyvern dying, so I'll direct you back to my original point.

Adding an ability that makes wyverns more difficult to KO.

This is all Dragoon needs and it's getting it. Case closed.

EDIT: Also, how can you base literally all your "Classic Dragoon Strategies" off of Freya? That's not Classic Dragoon. That's Freya. It's not a long standing tradition if it only happened once. Dragoon is limited to Jumps and Lancet (which I feel the need to mention was a move used by Cyan in FFVI who was more of a Samurai than anything else). FFXIs Jumps are perfect. Lancet was only ever worthwhile in games where everyone had MP; FFXI is not one of those games.
It wouldn't even be useful to Dragoon/Mage at this point since most folks can recover 5MP before needing another Healing Breath. I'd make it a method to heal the Wyvern that does nothing more than Drain HP and TP and give it directly to they Wyvern. Why TP? Because pets don't have MP and if you need to heal your Wyvern, giving it TP with Lancet and then using Spirit Link works out very nicely.
Long Reach doesn't work in FFXI at all. Our attack mechanic doesn't have us running and jumping at the mob like Freya had, nor are there even any "rows" for the mechanic to work on. Swinging at a mob that's out of reach doesn't make sense when our lances are no longer than most other two handed weapons. Having Jumps work on such mobs would be the only acceptable implementation of that idea and even then, I'd rather have SE work on adding something that I'd use more than once in a blue moon. Though it would have been cool if SE worked Jumps so that using them on Wyrms that are flying would ground them again.