A way to fix DRG's weak firepower endgame.

[Ophannus]

So previously I suggested to the devs that DRG get something analgous to Berserk or Last Resortl; a Stance that boosts Attack for a duration to help DRG not hit for such low damage endgame compared to WARs, DRKs, and SAMs. Instead I offer this suggestion. Instead of enhancing our Attack, which is more along the lines of a Warrior or a Dark Knight type job, let DRGs have a Job Ability that simply allows us to ignore a portion of a target's defense for a duration. It fits Dragoons style more so than being a berserker or ravager that just goes in with brute strength, but rather since Dragoons are tactical warriors, exploiting chinks in a targets armor (i.e Angon, Wheeling Thrust, Camlan's Torment, 'Jump' under the effect of Spirit Surge, Gungnir's Additional Effect) is more of Dragoon's theme.

Piercing Strikes
Level 97(or as a proposed Tier III merit point Job Ability at Level 99)
Duration: 2 minutes
Recast: 5 minutes
Effect: Attacks and weapon skills will ignore a portion of a target's defense but lowers your evasion and defense.
Attributes: Lowers your evasion and defense by 15% but allows your attacks, jumps and weapon skills to ignore 20% of a target's defense and makes your attacks non-attribute so they can be used on Skeletons, Flans, Narakas etc. These are targets where a Dragoon is extremely weak and have no recourse except to wield a staff which hampers our usefulness. Since a Dragoon specializes in piercing weapons it would make sense that Dragoons could 'pierce' armor and ignore special shields and defenses much like Formless Strikes, the duration is shorter than Formless strikes and unlike Formless Strikes, imposes a heavy penalty on the dragoon more so than even Berserk or Last Resort; lowered defense AND evasion. Currently since Dragoons *need* /SAM to survive and maintain a 5-hit build and Hasso, we can't sub /WAR which other 2handers don't have a problem with, they either don't need /WAR due to having Last Resort, are a WAR so they can freely sub SAM, or are a SAM so they can freely sub /WAR. Dragoon, lacking a way to have Hasso and an Attack Boost JA like DRK/SAM, WAR/SAM and SAM/WAR can't have their cake and eat it too which is why this job ability would balance us while giving us something unique to bring to the table. This ability is unique in that the more defense a target has, the more effective the ability becomes so it would really help us against high level targets with monstrous defense, again which is where Dragoon's effectiveness as a damage dealer is severely hampered.


Alternatively instead of this JA being a stance, it could also be made into non-stance ability similar to Monk's Focus/Dodge with no negative side effects but the duration/recast would have to be significantly different since there are no penalties and thus no risk, in which case it would be:

Duration 1 minutes
Recast 5 minutes

Personally I think the former would be more effective.

[Jaall]

I agree with the concept but I don't think it would really give us enough being only 2 mins out of 5. You'd still be spending 3 mins being as useless as we are now in comparison to WAR and DRK so not much would change. Maybe if it was more like what berserk used to be and had a small amount of downtime but the majority of the time you could have the effect active. It would kinda act as DRG's version of berserk/LR while being specific to the jobs nature. I just don't agree with 2 mins as that's not enough time to really get your damage up to speed and considering DRK and WAR are so far ahead, but I do agree to add balance to it, it can't be the whole 5 mins.

[Umichi]

introduce t3 merits that increase duration to 3-4 mins and make the ability a high level one.

[Ophannus]

Well the merits would increase it. But also keep in mine one thing. Decreasing a target's defense(or ignoring) is more effective than increasing your attack by the same value. Increasing attack increases the numerator but lowering defense decreases the denominator.

1000 Attack vs 1000 Defense. pDIF is 1.0

1200 Attack vs 1000 Defense is 1.20

1000 Attack vs 800 Defense is 1.25

So you always get more bang for your buck by lowering a mob's defense by 25% than increasing your attack by 25%. This is why Angon is so good. Instead of thinking that Angon decreases a mob's defense by 25%, you could alternatively think of it as increasing the ALLIANCE'S attack by 33%.


Mob has 1000 Defense, player has 1000 Attack
Berserk increases your attack to 1250, your pdif is 1.25.

Mob has 1000 Defense, everyone in the alliance has 1000 attack.
Angon decreases a mob's defense to 750, THE ALLIANCE'S pDIF is 1.33

[Jaall]

I agree that it's better than an attack boost but DRG really needs a fix like that and I'm not sure 2 mins would cut it, especially in the eyes of people who haven't played DRG but lead a lot of events. But if merits were to increase the duration I think it's a brilliant idea!

[Mirage]

3/5 minutes sounds good to me, and in line with a lot of other damage boosting abilities.

[Giers]

I dunno seems like the wrong way to address a job that has a hard time keeping up in all optimal situations at all times with a buff that is not always on

[Mirage]

Last resort and berserk isn't always on either, don't think anyone is gonna argue that those two aren't very good JAs that improve the two jobs by a lot.

[Jaall]

At the moment, I think it's the only way DRG is gonna have the opportunity to compete with other jobs considering SE obviously has favourite jobs, and DRG is by far not one of them. We're obviously not getting the attack boosts we've been asking for since, well forever and none of the other problems are getting addressed like Angon not stacking with Gungnir def down. Either SE isn't putting enough into this game anymore which is very likely the case what with FFXIV, or they aren't accepting the other ideas people have put across, so the only way to really get through to them is keep bringing forward ideas and keep proving that DRG needs fixing.

I personally think this would work better than just an attack + boost because DRG is so far behind compared to WAR and DRK. Unless of course you sell your soul for a Ryunohige, but I don't really want to put that much time into a game just to be good, and I doubt many people do. If they make the effect stack with gungnirs def down and angon, it would make gungnir a very worthwhile weapon to have and make DRG very desirable in events like legion where the effect would benefit the whole ally. Also it wouldn't make Ryunohige considerably better as to make it unbalanced but wouldn't have any negative impacts on it at all, only balance out DRG's relic and mythic which would be very welcome for anyone I'm sure.

[Tanama]

We are working hard to ensure that each job plays an equally important role in the new systems and NM battles, and we welcome any comments you may have that will help us accomplish this objective.

Dragoon

• Vision
  Experts with the lance who can take command of any battle with their wyverns, which can either deal heaping helpings of pain or relieve their party with a reinvigorating breath.
  
  We aim to make jumping a more dynamic aspect of dragoons' fighting style and to have wyverns evolve into more versatile allies with the ability to enfeeble enemies.
  
  
• Example Adjustments
  • Adding the effect of reducing magic resistance to certain wyvern breath attacks.
  • Adding an ability that makes wyverns more difficult to KO.
  • Adding an effect to Jump, High Jump, and Super Jump that reduces enmity of the player behind the dragoon.

The quote above is old now and since then we've been granted:

• Healing Breath IV
• Updated Remove Breath
• Spirit Surge adjustments
• Jump timers reduced
• Attribute ranks increased (HP, Evasion and Parrying skill)
• Spirit link adjustment

Damage wise, reducing Jump timers was a step in the right direction but the development team stopped increasing our damage after that. It would seem that adding a damage boosting job ability is not in their plans for Dragoon. As the only two-handed damage dealer without a melee boosting JA, should we be granted one or did the dev-team plan for our wyverns to be able to fill that gap? If that is so, then they are sadly mistaken. I am sure the dev-team can see the wyvern does next to no damage versus high level content and only serves to boost Soul Jump, Spirit Jump and occasionally heal.



Experts with Polearms, Jumps and our wyvern are Dragoon's main themes but they are all underwhelming when you compare other melee job's strengths and how they currently excel at it-- with the exception being the wyvern's healing capabilities. I think Samurai with an equal DMG polearm can deal higher Stardiver damage with Overwhelm.

As the only experts with polearms, Dragoon should be dominating the high-level battlefields together with Warriors, Dark Knights and Samurai. Jumps should be pulverizing the enemies as we reach awesome heights then landing on the enemy with all of the weight we carry, impaling them deep with our polearm. High level monsters should be feeling the effects of the frigid cold, frostbite inducing Frost Breath and the intense heat of a burning Flame Breath should leave the monsters burnt to a crisp. Armor-piercing polearms can and should be as devastating toward high level targets as the other two-handed weapons.

With that said, Dragoon's job traits could use a makeover.

• Attack Bonus I ~ IV
• Accuracy Bonus I ~ IV
• Dragon Killer
• Conserve TP
• Critical Defense Bonus
• Drachen Evolution I ~ V - Improves wyvern's attack, accuracy, breath damage + accuracy and reduces attack delay.
• Jump Mastery I ~ VI - Grants a TP Bonus and critical damage increased by a % amount with each tier -
• True Pierce I ~ IV - Grants a damage bonus to piercing attacks. [This trait could also be shared with THF and DNC]

As you can see, the last two traits were inspired by Dead Aim and True Shot. The OP's Piercing Strikes can serve as Dragoon's stance as Velocity Shot is to Ranger with reduced Attack Delay by 10%, further reduced via merits. The OP's idea as well as the others being talked about in these forums should be lighting up bulbs for the development team.

I would hope.