Dragoon Job trait suggestion: Incisiveness

[Ryx]

Greetings one and all, I've been toying with an idea for how to address the issue of Dragoon's shortcomings against high-level content (see: Legion).

The issue is fairly complicated, and cannot be fixed with a simple, unconditional buff to Dragoon as that would overpower the job outside of Legion. With that said, any adjustments made need to be very subtle, and tailored such that they would only show when fighting the difficult content currently giving Dragoon trouble.

Taking that into consideration, and the nature of Dragoon as a job, I've come up with this idea:

Job Trait: Incisiveness
Acquired: Dragoon Lv.99 / Wyvern Lv.99
Effect: Ignores a portion of the enemy's defense (and damage resistance) when attacking higher-level monsters from the side/behind.

1. This effect only ignores a portion of the monster's defense / damage resistance, not ALL of it.
   • This effect scales based on the gap between player and monster level; the bigger the gap, the more defense is ignored.
     • For this reason, the trait is acquired at lv99 to prevent abuse by lower-level Dragoons
2. This effect is only active when attacking mobs from the side or behind (basically, not the front). This is in essense a way of saying "when the dragoon has hate, they're doing enough damage (and doesn't need help). When the dragoon doesn't have hate, they can stay out of the mob's face and get the bonus." I realize this sounds horribly flawed with the current hate issues, but I felt this would be appropriate so it doesn't need to be adjusted later when the hate issues have been resolved (please, please, PLEASE do NOT give up on fixing them).
3. Resistances to Piercing damage are unaffected, only resistances to all/physical damage are considered for this.
4. Wyverns are also granted this trait, they're considered dragoons and get most of our traits anyways, throw our companions a bone and let them ignore some defense too, Altana knows they need it.
5. This trait IS active on weapon skills.

"Incisive" means to be very direct and decisive, usually in a manner or presentation. In this case, I would use it to refer to the Dragoon's attacks. Think of it like striking at an enemy's weak points with direct, decisive attacks when fighting against gigantic foes. We as dragoons, more than anyone else, have it in our lore to fight great beasts of colossal size, and thus being able to target their weak points would come as a show of our experience with large opponents.

I felt this trait would be a solid suggestion; perhaps not a "complete fix," but a solid step towards reducing the gap between Dragoon and other damage-dealers against high-level content.

• it doesn't overpower us against content that is currently relatively balanced.
  
• It doesn't just make us into a carbon-copy of another DD like Dark Knight or Warrior.
  
• It fits with Dragoon's "piercing" nature and we already have two exclusive weapon skills already showing this nature (it's just that they're both crappy single-hits, one of them a VIT-mod).
  
• It doesn't *rely* on the wyvern being alive, but benefits from the wyvern's presense, as it would help the wyvern's damage where it really falls off as-is.

As far as potency of this trait...I'm sure someone could up with some napkin-math suggestions, I'm just laying general framework for the idea.

Just a few other potential points of this trait, nothing really set in stone, but random thoughts:

• Could put a minimum level gap requirement before the effect activates, say 11 levels (i.e: It'd only work against lv110+ mobs)
• Effect could increase in potency when the wyvern is not present
• If the effect feels too powerful to be a trait, could be made into a 5 minute recast, 3 minute duration ability akin to berserk or last resort
• The effect could be applied to only the first hit of a multi-hit attack, similar to Enspell IIs

This is just an idea I've come up with, as a possibility for Dragoon.

-Ryx

Tl;dr: Trait that ignores a portion of the enemy's defense/damage resistance when fighting higher-level monsters.

[Martel]

This started out good, then you went and systematically destroyed everything that'd make such a trait useful.

Direction/postion dependance is terrible. Talk to any THF or SAM about the frustration these cause. /mob spins like a top.

Ignore dmg resistance, EXCEPT piercing resist? Naraka in Mul really really suck for DRG. Ignoring some of the the piercing resist would have actually been useful.

The ignore def/DMG resist idea isn't so powerful that it needs to have so many checks and balances in the first place. You KNOW, that IF SE did add it, it'd be like 5~10% ignore max. Even if that was active full time, unconditionally, it wouldn't be a major change.

[Ryx]

Perhaps I am a bit heavy on the quirks of the ability, I'm willing to admit that the positioning thing isn't the most friendly idea out there, but by making it "anywhere but the front" is a bit less constricting than Samurai Overwhelm or Thief attacks.

None of this is set in stone, it's pure conjecture on my part. I gave it all these potential drawbacks in the hopes that doing so would allow the effect itself to be more powerful because of it.

It's just that I usually see "ability/trait" request threads as being a bit superfluous in nature, asking for the moon without consequence, "my job should be the best job because that's the job I play" and what not. I'm trying not to do that, I'm just trying to suggest a concept that I came up with, added a few quirks to as a means of "justifying" it, and presented it.

I'm not suggesting this ability as something that would, by itself, bridge the entire gap between Dragoons and the other damage dealers in Legion. I'm suggesting it as something to help to that effect, but not to achieve it entirely.

If the positioning thing feels like too much, then just don't include that part.

Job Trait: Incisiveness
Acquired: Dragoon Lv.99 / Wyvern Lv.99
Effect: Ignores a portion of the enemy's defense (and damage resistance) when attacking higher-level monsters.

If the idea of it not applying to piercing-specific resistances doesn't seem like an appropriate idea, then change it. I personally felt that making it apply to that would defeat the point of it even having a piercing resistance, or making mobs that're less suited for certain jobs to fight. Though I suppose piercing resistance wouldn't be negated entirely, and would still apply in full to thieves and rangers.

I'm not looking for a game-changer, I'm looking for a subtle touch. Something that, in combination with other changes to be made, helps bring the playing field closer to level.

[Mirage]

I like the concept of this ability. Personally, I think something like this would be good:

Job Ability - 3 min duration, 5 min cooldown.
Ignores 1% defence per level the target is above the DRG up to a cap of 15% defence ignored. Ignores 1% damage resistance per 2 levels the target is above the DRG, up to a cap of 10% damage resistance ignored. Both effects should also apply to the DRG's wyvern. If wyvern is dead, the def ignored cap is increased to 18%, damage resistance ignored cap is increased to 12%. Naturally, both effects gained from this JA should also apply during weaponskills.

As for the positional requirements, I think they are fine, whenever SE fixes hate so we don't get spinning enemies all the time.


I guess it wouldn't matter too much if this was a trait instead, with the same effects except a flat rate of 8 or 10% defence ignored and a 5-7% resistance ignored.

[Babekeke]

Just have a trait that ignores half of the level correction. Job done.

[Mirage]

Now you're making things too simplistic!

[Babekeke]

Sorry my bad, maybe complicate it more by using some stupid fraction? 511/1024 of the level gap reduced. Better? ;p

[Mirage]

That's excellent!