Idea for a new DRG JA

[Ophannus]

One problem with DRG is losing the wyvern. The problem is, SE has addressed the issue with keeping the wyvern alive, so now it's actually very easy to keep it from dying. With Spirit Link at 90 seconds, the additional regen effect, the new 2hr, steady wing and the -40% Damage Taken, wyverns are near impossible to kill.

So what am I driving at? Wyverns die when the Dragoon dies. So despite our best efforts at keeping the Wyvern alive, if we die, we have to wait 20 minutes. During those 20minutes Dragoon is extremely weak, our TP and DoT drop dramatically as we lose our best asset. Now on to the main purpose of this post:

Fervency - Increases attack and attack speed. Cannot be used when Wyvern is present.
Level 60
Recast 20 minutes
Duration: 20minutes
Attack+15% Attack Speed+10%

This will give us *SOMETHING* to use when the player is killed in a difficult fight and we reraise and are now a lot weaker for the next 20minutes. No other job faces such a dire penalty. DRG is the sole job in the game that even after dying and being reraised and weakness wears off still faces a massive reduction in combat ability due to waiting for Call Wyvern.

Since SE said that they will not consider decreasing the recast on Call Wyvern except for implementing merit point reduction, I propose this ability to help reduce the pain and suffering DRGs endure when we die and lose our wyvern from the player dying. Although the Wyvern has very good durability and DRGs are more durable than before thanks to heightened evasion/hp/parrying, we can and will die in hard battlefields and endgame content due to strong enemy moves or doom/death. When we lose our pet our damage and usefulness drop massively. This ability will give the DRG an option to increase its abilities to compensate until Call Wyvern is up again.

SE might say this ability might encourage DRGs to not use Call Wyvern in favor of this ability, but I assure you +15% Attack and +10% attack speed will not be better than the massive TP and damage we get from Jumps and losing out on Healing Breath and Smiting Breath.

[Babekeke]

SE might say this ability might encourage DRGs to not use Call Wyvern in favor of this ability, but I assure you +15% Attack and +10% attack speed will not be better than the massive TP and damage we get from Jumps and losing out on Healing Breath and Smiting Breath.

Not to mention all the lovely TP we get from Spirit Link when /mage

[Ophannus]

It's also troublesome that both of our 2hr abilities require the Wyvern to be present in order to activate them. If we enter a fight, use Spirit Link, throw up Steady Wing and charge into battle and then get hit with a 1700+ AoE attack or an instant death move like Death Prophet or that move Akvan uses or some other random insta death move, our 2hr is worthless for 20 minutes. The DRG relies pretty heavily on the Wyvern only because DRG does not have any support abilities to use that do no rely on the Wyvern besides Angon and Jump. We need a stance or self enhancing ability to increase our damage besides Jump/High Jump. These abilities don't even make up for the loss of an attack round since they interrupt our delay, this was the reason why Spirit/Soul Jump were added.

So the problem lies in that even if our Wyvern is extremely durable, the Dragoon is not and we are still subject to being stunned/petrified and then being killed in 1-2 TP moves or getting instantly KO'd. It's just unreasonable that DRG is the ONLY job in the entire game that loses an aspect of gameplay for 20 minutes. If a BLM dies, they're weakened for 5minutes and it only takes 2-3min of resting to recover all their MP. If a DRG dies and unweakens, they're still not at full battle potential for another 20minutes. Giving us something to fall back on when the wyvern isn't alive is the first step into making DRG a more balanced class.


Secondly while we're on the subject of 2hrs, can the community representatives forward a suggestion to the developers for me regarding a adjustment to the new DRG 2hr ability? I would like to see the new DRG 2hr, in addition to resetting the timers for Restoring Breath and Smiting Breath, also restore the recast timer for Call Wyvern. This way, in a big battle, a DRG can call his Wyvern, throw up Steady Wing and Spirit Link with Empathy and then use the new 2hr to ensure that even if he or his wyvern dies, he can call his wyvern back immediately upon being raised. I can't stress this enough. Please let the new 2hr restore the Call Wyvern recast timer to 0.

[Mathieu]

Yeah, this is way, way better than what the wyvern does outside soloing with a /mage sub. Even under ideal situations (low defense, relatively low level enemies), the wyvern damage isn't a huge deal. Boosting the much better Dragoon DPS, would be far superior to what the wyvern does, especially by increasing attack speed. You would get far more TP from that alone then from Spirit Link.

Yeah, sometimes the Wyvern dies. It's not supposed to be something you can always rely on, just like how Dark Knights and Dancers have abilities that won't work on undead. It's a noticeable DPS increase, although you are significantly exaggerating how much it is, capable of generating massive heals for almost no MP on a consistent basis, and can add a hefty amount of damage to weapon skills. The downside is that it can die. Removing the downside by making the Dragoon's DPS increase by more than the DPS added by the wyvern doesn't do that.

[Ophannus]

Actually I take it all back, we should be able to rock this JA whenever regardless if the Wyvern is alive or not. Freaking DRKs get Souleater, WAR's get Berserk and craploads of double attack. Our wyvern does almost nothing in endgame fights parsing less than 1% of total damage in a legion battle. We need some kind of JA haste and attack boosting JA. Even Gungnir DRGs can't even come anywhere near a Ukkon WAR or Ragnarok DRK. DRG is far too weak at 99 compared to other melees, stop boosting the wyvern and boost the dragoon. It was cute that they gave us more HP, evasion and parrying but it would have been better if we got more attack and accuracy bonuses to make up for freaking "CRITICAL DEFENSE BONUS" which offers us nothing offensive(Critical Defense Bonus is a worthless trait for dragoons because we almost never get it due to practically never having hate) replace with Critical Attack Bonus please, we aren't Paladins.

[Ophannus]

One other idea I want to emphasize for the Devs consideration is to give us some kind of damage buff like Attack or Attack Speed that would be a stance ability; the penalty would be the wyvern would be unable to use breaths passively(only with pet commands) for the duration. It's troublesome to use Spirit Link to increase our TP when our wyvern's TP is reset after each WS. Giving us a way to restrict breaths unless we use Restoring or Smiting Breath would be an excellent way for us to take advantage of the TP transfer aspect of Spirit Link.

An alternate suggestion would be to give a pet command to increase wyvern attack speed/accuracy/attack power but restrict automatic breaths, serving the same purpose but enhancing the wyvern's damage instead of our own. read:lamer

[Calysto]

the idea is good, but a ja with 20mmn recast and 20 mn duration is not.
-it get dispelled or you die again : no improvement over now
-use it then call wyvern : probably too good

add to that the "ja recast cap" and that wouldn't happens.

now, if you take theses stats and just put them on a job trait active with no wyvern, it's all good.
(maybe throw some store tp with it)

[Mayoyama]

No other job faces such a dire penalty.

double weak blms/sch/rdm (nuking) and rngs/cor would argue against this point... >.>

[Martel]

double weak blms/sch/rdm (nuking) and rngs/cor would argue against this point... >.>

Except that once those Mages/RNG'd DD unweak they're back at full potency. 3~5 min penalty.(got Arise?) Whereas a DRG gets to wait up to an additional 15 min(depending on when you last called wyvern) before we're back at full strength.

[Ophannus]

^That is what I was trying to convey and wasn't sure if others knew what I meant. No other job is as hindered as DRG is for as long as DRG is after dying and reraising.