Dragoon Shortcomings

[cengeal]

This is a short list of things I have found to be frustrating on DRG since coming back. I understand other people will have views as to why these things should maybe not be adjusted, and they are welcome to their view. I know a lot of these issues have been visited in previous threads, but this is really just everything merged into a single nutshell that bothers me the most about my favorite job.

First, lower the recast of Call Wyvern. I personally think I do a great job at keeping Soryu alive. I manage to keep him alive during AA fights, WKR reives, etc by constantly attending to him and watching his hp. The problem is, when you die, the wyvern goes bye bye. If you're lucky, the timer is ready. However, most of the time you won't be, then you're basically a neutered puppy until you can resummon the wyvern. This doesn't happen because I suck or don't know what I'm doing, it happens because you can't do much when you get 1 shot. A simple solution is to introduce a pet item that allows you to call wyvern without depleting the Job Ability. The better solution is to actually reduce the recast timer to maybe ten minutes. After weakness wears off the timer would be 5-7 minutes, which is still annoying, but easier to deal with than an outrageous 15 minutes.

Second, Drakesbane. I feel insulted this weaponskill was not adjusted during the major weaponskill revamp. It seems like it was intentionally not adjusted. Even with critical hit rate +20%, I found Stardiver outperforming it on fodder monsters. Also concerning Drakes is the compatibility with Stardiver. At first glance, it appears Stardiver was implemented to enhance Drakesbane with the critical hit evasion reduction. So then, why do these two not skillchain together? That just does not make sense to me. For anybody who is going to refute the need to address this, please do not use Ryunohige owners being too powerful as a defense, as they makeup a small portion of the DRG population.

Third, there's the issue of Jump not serving a purpose when your wyvern is out (and it should always be out). I will leave High Jump off this list because it does have the use of shedding enmity when Super Jump is down. Because Spirit Jump has wyvern presence bonuses, Jump is practically useless when the wyvern is out. Any bonus or perk would help. Maybe a stun effect, a drain effect, chance to reduce enemy's critical hit evasion, there are really numerous ways to make Jump relevant.

I firmly believe that all of these issues need to be addressed and adjusted. Ever since I've played DRG I've always felt it was the neglected child, and because of that it was never able to be appreciated the same way the golden child is.

[Martel]

Agreed on all counts.

For call wyvern, if they don't wanna reduce the recast, they could have the wyvern automatically come back when you're raised after death.(assuming the wyvern was present when the DRG died) Seeing as the DRG dying is more the issue than the wyvern dropping. Although this would probably be harder to code, so take the easy way out and just lower the recast. <,<

Drakes, so much rage and sadness. Seeing it ignored in the ws adjustments was really disappointing. I'd love to see a good drakes buff. Including a change to SC properties.(lvl3 light please~)

Jump, and imo high jump are both pretty pointless atm. Tanking has made a come back, but even now there very little to no need to ever drop enmity. DMG enmity is so weak now, that DD's can hardly keep hate off mages, much less a tank. Hardly need to reduce enmity. <,< So I still see High Jump as a waste of a jump recast when you could have soul jumped.

Solution. Split the jump recasts already. And no, you don't need to nerf recasts to do that. Having 4 usable jumps will not break the game. Nor will it push DRG into the top DD slot, or anything of the sort. It would just be nice if there was actually a reason for jump and high jump to exist now. And you know, a use for the metric tons of jump enhancing gear SE keeps adding. Most of which doesn't freaking work on spirit/soul jump. -.-;

[Baltzar]

This doesn't happen because I suck or don't know what I'm doing, it happens because you can't do much when you get 1 shot.

This is the fundamental problem, and it doesn't concern drg only but all melees, as we can see with all the /shout asking for a lot of things but melees.
Ranged DD have the big advantage of, well, attacking from far. Melees don't have anything to compensate.

Most MMO don't have this problem because they use a lot of attack pattern targeted to ranged/mages, like attacks that only hit players that are far away (even if it does break a little the idea of being a ranged dd in the first place).
It's a shame but we need something ridiculous like a big boost to the hp, magic defence and/or magic evasion of all melees.
Or, if we think about dragoon only, give us some mean to spam super jump to avoid aoe, or give us far more defensive/healing ability with /mage.

The balance of this game has always been trash, especially this aspect, but since they're planning a new release with the "native app" from Nexon, they need to improve it and the best way to do it is to do it now with the current game.
Crappy balance was more or less ok in the past because of novelty or stuff, but now people don't like to lose time, so they don't like to level up a class and learn hours later that said class is useless, thus people hate lack of balance. The native app is doomed to fail if they don't improve the balance drastically.

They can reduce the recast of Call wyvern all they want, they may even remove it completely, it won't change the fact that melees sucks and die all the time.

[Ophannus]

It would have been cool if Spirit Surge could be used without a Wyvern, but doing so would summon a Wyvern in a powered up state for 60 seconds, keeping in line that Spirit Surge is an SP ability. Back before we got Fly High, the prototype we got was called Rouse Wyvern which made the Wyvern invincible to all damage, powered up its stats and attack speed, and reduced Smiting/Restoring breaths to 10 seconds and strengthened them. Seeing as how if Call Wyvern is down and our Wyvern is dead, we're in deep trouble, Spirit Surge having a secondary purpose would be welcomed. Not only would this idea prevent us neglecting our Wyvern's survivability (if the timer was 5min recast, nobody would care about Spirit Link or Steady Wing) but allow us to get *SOME* use out of Spirit Surge when our wyvern is dead. Also, since the secondary effect of Spirit Surge (when no wyvern is present) would be the same as Rouse Wyvern, it would ensure for 60 seconds our Wyvern is unkillable, which would be amazzzzzzzing for certain fights. It would also be cool to have a branching-use SP ability that's properties depend on if the wyvern is present or not. If wyvern is present, the wyvern's strenght is added to our own, if the wyvern is KO'd, our strength is added to the Wyvern(by summonming it back, and with 60sec of enhanced strength).

Simply lowering the recast would invalidate all the buffs we got to Wyvern over the last 3 years and would likely necessitate them nerfing their HP, Def, Mag.Def, Evasion, doubling the recast of Spirit Surge and halving its strength(basically quartering its effectivness), removing wyverns' -40% damage taken, and reducing Steady Wing back to its original potency which was 25% stoneskin not 33%.

Instead of simply lowering the recast and subsequently nerfing every survivability bonus they gave to them, I would rather them make Spirit Surge have an alternative use of a "Deus Ex Automata" for Dragoons, albeit on 60min timer so it can't be abused. This would give us a much needed 'second chance' at recalling our Wyvern when it counts, at the cost of an SP ability, but with an added bonus of 60 seconds of being impervious to damage -- assuring its survival.


High Jump has its uses for sure, and I've used it countless times to shed hate in small parties of 6 doing content with a PLD. That 75% hate shed comes in handy when Super Jump is down.

Jump needs some kind of bonus, though technically it has a higher base damage than Spirit Jump. If you have Ryunohige and not worried about TP, technically Jump is stronger than Spirit Jump due to the VIT bonus, however the extra TP is almost ALWAYS worth it. One small change that could make Jump useful again is giving it a short 1second Stun effect. There are 4 'Knight' style jobs in FFXI. PLD DRK SAM DRG. Each of these have a 'Killer' trait and a 'Circle' ability. In addition, 3 out of the 4 also have a 'bash' or an instant ability that deals a small amount of damage and stuns. DRG does not have a stun 'bash' ability. Why not add a short 1s stun to Jump? That would make DRG decide to use Jump to stun a spell or TP move when it's up, giving it very good utility in certain fights, and Spirit Jump can be used for damage/TP. Or, maybe make Jump steal 25% of the damage it deals as HP, making it useful as a quick emergency heal and would fit in line with DRG's 'lancet/lancer' ability from previous FF games. In fact, make it a job point like you guys did for Mug. Every upgrade, 2.5% of the damage dealt is converted into HP, so 25% when capped out. At least draining a few hundred points of HP every 50 seconds would make it somewhat useful I suppose...though still not as useful as if the recasts were simply split...

[Grekumah]

We were able to collect some answers for two of your suggestions.

- Jump and Call Wyvern
We currently have no plans to make adjustments in this direction as it'll move away from the concept of dragoons being strong while they maintain their wyvern.

- Drakesbane
The Drakesbane weapon skill isn't meant to be used in a skillchain with Stardiver, therefore we will not be making any adjustments with the premise of skillchains in mind.

[Glamdring]

We were able to collect some answers for two of your suggestions.

- Jump and Call Wyvern
We currently have no plans to make adjustments in this direction as it'll move away from the concept of dragoons being strong while they maintain their wyvern.

well that's stupid. while I have no particular feelings on the Jump request Call Wyvern has a tremendous argument in its favor and you just used it to deny the need, "the concept of dragoons being strong while they maintain their wyvern." Wyverns are not durable, I don't recall them EVER being durable. and as you just stated without them dragoon is not strong. an update to Call Wyvern or a dragoon version of Deus Ex would go a long way to making this job party viable in end-game. Because this position statement, coupled with the timetable for ending support for FFXI has just signed the death warrant of dragoon's viability as an end-game contributor, and at the actual end of the game as well. I understand that he Devs may feel dragoon is powerfull enough as it is, but with all due respect the devs' feelings on the subject mean nothing, because they aren't getting dragoon any party love, and pretty much the entire reason for this is the (valid) public perception that without a wyvern dragoons are next to useless and that a wyvern usually won't live more than 2 minutes in end-game.

so, perchance the Devs could come on here and explain how that perception is wrong or that dragoons ARE in fact sought after for end-game content? because honestly, with all of us in the forum as direct observers of the opposite in action we'd really like to know how we are wrong.

[YosemiteYogorockBlondelle]

well that's stupid. while I have no particular feelings on the Jump request Call Wyvern has a tremendous argument in its favor and you just used it to deny the need, "the concept of dragoons being strong while they maintain their wyvern." Wyverns are not durable, I don't recall them EVER being durable. and as you just stated without them dragoon is not strong. an update to Call Wyvern or a dragoon version of Deus Ex would go a long way to making this job party viable in end-game. Because this position statement, coupled with the timetable for ending support for FFXI has just signed the death warrant of dragoon's viability as an end-game contributor, and at the actual end of the game as well. I understand that he Devs may feel dragoon is powerfull enough as it is, but with all due respect the devs' feelings on the subject mean nothing, because they aren't getting dragoon any party love, and pretty much the entire reason for this is the (valid) public perception that without a wyvern dragoons are next to useless and that a wyvern usually won't live more than 2 minutes in end-game.

so, perchance the Devs could come on here and explain how that perception is wrong or that dragoons ARE in fact sought after for end-game content? because honestly, with all of us in the forum as direct observers of the opposite in action we'd really like to know how we are wrong.

Sounds like they want drg to be more of a non-pet based job with their statement and calling the pet is just an optional ability to call forth and if i'm not mistaken thats how they first made dragons in the ffxiv game? Soo drg isn't a drg without a pet wyvern it's just another type of job entirely then or a drg isn't a drg without having a highly functional stable pet that can take high amounts of dmg thrown at it even thrown at it rapidly countless times...

Well have at it with the contributes to this post>:-)

[cengeal]

We were able to collect some answers for two of your suggestions.

- Jump and Call Wyvern
We currently have no plans to make adjustments in this direction as it'll move away from the concept of dragoons being strong while they maintain their wyvern.

- Drakesbane
The Drakesbane weapon skill isn't meant to be used in a skillchain with Stardiver, therefore we will not be making any adjustments with the premise of skillchains in mind.

This is the problem. We do maintain our wyverns. The problem is when we get one shot we lose our wyverns for nearly 20 minutes. The fact that we lost our wyverns isn't because we were unable to maintain them, but because of either bad party mechanics or just a flat out fail. When we get back into the fight we are crippled DD's for the next 15 minutes. This is one of my biggest fears when going to any event as DRG. Personally I believe my DRG is a great DD, but when my wyvern is dead my damage is crippled, and it is not because I did not maintain my wyvern, but because the party failed. No other job has a setback like this.

For some reason the Dev team seems to think that DRG is overpowered. This statement is true... against anything weak to piercing. Anything not weak to piercing, DRG is near the middle of the pack, assuming all players are of a similar caliber. Any type of boost would be nice. Maybe a JA that is only able to be used when the wyvern is down. This JA would not be as powerful as having the wyvern out, but it would be an option for when the wyvern is unable to be called back. As I just said, no other job has a setback like this after they die. No other job is punished the same way as DRG is in the case of a party wipe. This delay is hands down the biggest problem with DRG.

[Calatilla]

- Jump and Call Wyvern
We currently have no plans to make adjustments in this direction as it'll move away from the concept of dragoons being strong while they maintain their wyvern.

BST is strong while they have a pet out and they're able to heal their pets with a low recast job ability and also have 2 abilities on seperate timers to call a pet if their current one dies so they pretty much have a pet out full time. SMN can recast avatars indefinatly and PUP has the option of calling a new weaker pet if their current one dies, heal to full and dismiss to reset deploy timer.

So why is it DRG has to deal with a 20min recast timer on their pet when they have none of the above options that other pet jobs have.

[Ophannus]

BST is strong while they have a pet out and they're able to heal their pets with a low recast job ability and also have 2 abilities on seperate timers to call a pet if their current one dies so they pretty much have a pet out full time. SMN can recast avatars indefinatly and PUP has the option of calling a new weaker pet if their current one dies, heal to full and dismiss to reset deploy timer.

So why is it DRG has to deal with a 20min recast timer on their pet when they have none of the above options that other pet jobs have.

Playing devil's advocate here, but the answer is because DRG's DPS is much, much higher than either SMN or BST without a pet. BST's melee is subpar and they have literally no abilities that enhance their own damage. SMN is absolutely worthless without a pet, they have no spells other than summons. DRG wields the second highest base DMG weapon in the game, has extremely good gear, has Jumps which, even when nerfed without a Wyvern being alive, are still a DPS gain, and Stardiver is pretty damn good.

Problem is when DRG's wyvern is alive, we are >SO< good, but if we die from a strong attack, no matter how much HP or durability the Wyvern has, it will die as soon as we do, thus its fragility is based on our fragility. They tried to re-mediate this by increasing the Dragoon's HP/Parry/Evasion a few years ago, but while this helped marginally for moderate content, end game bosses will still instantly kill a Dragoon in a single TP move if not stunned, we can still die instantly to Death or receive a Doom effect that we cannot remove in time and thus our DPS is totally garbage for up to 20 minutes, while other DPS jobs can just be raised and be back at full strength in 3-5minutes.