[Dev 1070] Dragoon Adjustments

[Ophannus]

Overall I'm pleased with these updates. Healing Breath IV is strong but not too strong, though it can be potent given the right scenario(When the Wyvern is leveled up, it's a potent, 0MP Cure VI that makes 0 enmity...poor RDM's..)

The Jump recast are perfect and will lead to more, albeit still relatively weak weapon skills.

The only thing I'm at a loss for is the skill cap adjustments. The Evasion boost was certainly welcome but I fail to see how 15 parrying skill is going to make much of a difference considering how miniscule raising parrying skill does for actual parrying rates in addition to the difficulty of actually capping this skill, especially on a job like Dragoon. Perhaps you may look into removing the parrying bonus and strengthening the HP grade to B or B+ like SAM and WAR and giving us B+ evasion like MNK.

So if I could make suggestions they'd be:
-Increase HP further to B+
-Increase Evasion to B+
-Leave Parrying at C-.
-Increase Attack Power on Drakesbane OR Stardiver(though this might make SAM stronger as a result too), or give DRG another Attack Bonus or two or a new JA that boosts our Attack by a moderate amount so we don't lose out. DRG is the only 2handed melee that subs SAM that doesn't have a native attack boosting JA.(DRK has Last Resort/Endark, WAR has Warcry/Berserk)


-An addition to Steady Wing that gives a moderate chance (5-25%, depending on the Wyvern's HP) to absorb damage,healing the Wyvern, while the stoneskin is in effect. This gives us another chance to heal the Wyvern when it's lower on HP and Spirit Link is down and Steady Wing is up.

-Make Spirit Surge a 90 second duration. It was stated before that because the Haste category was altered to stack with magic and equipment haste that the recast would not be extended beyond 60 seconds(originally slated to be 90 seconds). I'd like to argue that Last Resort with Desperate Blows meritted grants the same potency Haste as Spirit Surge does, except Last Resort lasts 3minutes with a 5 min recast and Spirit Surge currently lasts 60 seconds with a 2 hour recast. Shouldn't the 2hr ability have a little more than 60 second duration compared to a level 15 DRK ability which lasts 3 minutes and grants the same potency to Haste. Or at least leave it at 60 second but grant us a +20% Attack or something during that time so our weapon skills could not only come more often but will be more potent, the +Attack would be more helpful in hard fights than the +STR that Spirit Surge adds.

[mattkoko]

seriously you got like 3 pages worth of pretty damn good adjustments and you want more? by the way, if you really need extra attack power on drakesbane then you fail at drg. drg was doing just fine before this update

[Scribble]

High evasion shouldn't be an option for jobs that wear heavy armor. I was under the impression that this was part of the reason why jobs like THF/NIN/DNC all have better evasion to offset having to use light armor.

[Ophannus]

This forum is for freedback. Remember how SCH had Tabula Rasa adjusted like 5x? First they increased duration to 90 seconds, then they buffed Kaustra and Embrava more, then they lowered their MP cost then they increased duration to 3 minutes and then they buffed Embrava and Kaustra a third time. Same with Bully, they changed the effect and duration of bully like 4x due to feedback. The same could be said for Spirit Surge. It needs longer and stronger duration.

Go and try using Drakesbane on anything higher than a tier 4 VW NM. I'll eat my shoe if you can break 1500. Then observe what Ukkos/VS/Shoha/Upheaval/Resolution/Fudo do on those NMs. Hell even doing Lancing Lamorak with Stalwarts/BRD/COR/Champions/Red Curry Bun and using Angon with boss WS gear, my Drakesbane/Stardivers ranged wildly from 600-2k, mostly saw around 1100-1200 for either and was getting full TP return, not talking shadows. Warmachineprime, a WAR in my LS was consistantly doing 2700-3800 Ukko's Fury and SAM was easily doing 3kish Shoha.

On weaker VW mobs, I can come close to 3k Stardivers so the issue isn't base damage of the weapon skill, it comes down to attack power. Not having berserk/LR really kills it for DRG and having attack-20% on drakesbane doesn't help either. I challenge you to do VW on some Tier5/Tier6 Jeuno VW NMs and watch how worthless DRG is. Even CORs using Last Stand are doing close to 2k almost every time and RNGs doing pretty boss Apex Arrows. Almost every DD save for BLU,PUP,THF(unless they have Mandau) and DNC destroy DRG's damage on hard mobs. DRG has always been an excellent job on medium content like weaker NMs/Assaults/Limbus/Dynamis etc but we've ALWAYS been crappy on the hardest content of any level range. At 75 you'd be laughed at for trying to Drakesbane Cerberus/Khimera/Hydra, it'd do like 80 damage on any of those if you were lucky.

[Ophannus]

High evasion shouldn't be an option for jobs that wear heavy armor. I was under the impression that this was part of the reason why jobs like THF/NIN/DNC all have better evasion to offset having to use light armor.

Samurai wears heavy armor and they have B+ evasion, natural Seigan/Third Eye and A- parrying too. I'm just asking for B+ evasion seems fair. Also before ToAU, DRG couldn't wear heavy armor, only scale and leather like RDMs yet NIN could wear Royal Knight Armor/Chainmail and Haubergeon type stuff which is heavier armor than DRG and they had A- Evasion.

[Transmit]

I totally 100% agree that DRG needs some other way to boost their attack. They are in the minority of melee DD's who don't get access to a Berserk or Last Resort style move via main or subjob JA's. And the gap really shows now on the highest tier VW mobs. Drakesbane has a -19% attack debuff on it, so its damage is all over the place, and Stardiver is consistent but we lack the attack to get close to the other 2 handed DD's.

It doesnt have to be a large attack boost, because I fully believe jobs like WAR / SAM / MNK etc deserve the top spots over jobs like DRG with more utility, but when my BLU can out melee DD my DRG AND has more utility, something is wrong. An attack boost and this will be a perfect update for DRG.

Edit - I think the adjustments so far are fantastic, and I hugely appreciate them, parrying boost seems a bit odd, but I won't say no too it. However I would gladly trade some of these defense boosts for stronge offensive as described above.

[mattkoko]

you dont get more attack power but what you lack in attack makes up for in jumps. i have done a spirit jumps and soul jumps of up to 500-1k dmg giving upwards of 40-120 tp return. if you /sam, you can tp non-stop. and now they are decreasing the timer on both of those jumps so you can do it more often. plus your wyvern does extra dmg. and now getting healing breath IV which is probably going to cap somewhere between cure V and cure IV. i dont understand what the big problem is lol

[Transmit]

I don't know what you're fighting which you're doing 500-1k Soul / Spirit jumps on. THis is a parse I just did of Ocythoe, one of the weaker Tier 6 VW NMs


Spirit Jump
117: 1
139: 1
281: 1
347: 1
371: 1
^ 378: 1
427: 1
464: 1
+ 465: 2


Soul Jump
+ 176: 1
+ 319: 1
+^ 391: 1
+ 487: 1
+ 552: 1

Yes you can do 1k damage on trash mobs, or in abyssea, but not where content is focused now. And I may be unsure but I think that mob takes increased piercing damage.

And for comparison of the wyvern damage?

Niloc 69102
George 1274

1.8% of my total damage.

I'm appreciative of all the new utility additions, but what I was saying is I'd actually give some of that up to get a smaller boost to my offensive. DRG doesnt need a Berserk or Last Resort, but a small 10%~ boost to attack would be awesome and round up a set of great adjustments. I'm sure the increased TP gain and damage DRG gets via jumps is similiar to the increased TP gain and damage DRK gets via 25% Haste 25% attack Last Resort, and they still do great WS damage to boot.