Pro tip to make Healing Breath activate at 70% HP with /Mage and 50% with /Hybrids

[Ophannus]

This is a technique that not many Dragoons know about or employ when soloing with a mage or hybrid sub. Just equip copious amounts of HP gear in your healing breath trigger macro with a /wait 0.3-0.5 after it equips. With the right amount of HP gear you can overclock the HP % relative to your normal fighting gear at which Healing Breath activates.

For example:

With regular TP/Haste/Solo gear my Hume DRG/RDM has ~1740 HP.

With the following gear I get +630HP:
Ocean Sash
Dusk Trousers +1
Marine M Boots
Wave Gages
Meridian Ring
Bomb Queen Ring
Ardor Pendant
Bloodgem Earring
Cassie Earring
Drachen Armet +1
Wyrm Mail +2
Strendu Mantle
Egoist's Tathlum

1770HP + 630 HP= 2400 HP.
This means it will allow me to execute Healing Breath if my current HP is at or below 1200. Since my normal TP fighting gear has me at around 1770 max HP, I'd normally be able to use Healing Breath by casting a spell at 50% of that with /mage or 885, or at 33% of that with a hybrid subjob or 584 HP. But since I'm adding +630HP to my gear along with Drachen Armet +1, my max HP is boosted to 2400 so I can then execute a Healing Breath at 1200 which is around 68% of 1700 or at 792 which is about 45% of 1770. So with this method you can activate Healing Breath at a much higher threshold than without it, just make sure you macro into Wyvern HP gear and other healing breath enhancing equipment just as the breath activates!


For even more fun, do this in Abyssea where you can have 3500+ HP just from cruor buffs, with the gear you can achieve 4000 HP and acticate healing breaths at 2,000ish HP. If you have decent healing breath gear and you get the EXP bonus from your wyvern, you can activate healing breath at 2,000 HP and get a 1,000 healing breath which brings you near full HP. As long as a mob cannot 1 shot you from 2k HP(which most cannot!) you're basically unkillable because you're healing breath threshold will be 2,000 HP! Dragoon can easily solo most NMs in Abyssea(mostly the ones that don't use doom/death/petrify/amnesia/mute aura

[Ophannus]

Was able to solo Ahmuluk in about 8-9 minutes the other day with extreme ease: http://desmond.imageshack.us/Himg12/scaled.php?server=12&filename=ffxi20120302203924.jpg&res=medium

Can practically solo anything in abyssea now with the right gear aside from anything with a silence aura or something with endoom or petrify.

[Felren]

I still find it scary compared to DD + whm in cases such as -aga III/IV > fast strong TP move back to back, or a lucky double attack crit right after. In this case your wyvern might not be able to push out the breath fast enough as wyvern breath takes a good ~2-3 seconds whereas some WS are near instant.


This is a technique that not many Dragoons know about or employ when soloing with a mage or hybrid sub. Just equip copious amounts of HP gear in your healing breath trigger macro with a /wait 0.3-0.5 after it equips. With the right amount of HP gear you can overclock the HP % relative to your normal fighting gear at which Healing Breath activates.

For example:

With regular TP/Haste/Solo gear my Hume DRG/RDM has ~1740 HP.

With the following gear I get +630HP:
Ocean Sash
Dusk Trousers +1
Marine M Boots
Wave Gages
Meridian Ring
Bomb Queen Ring
Ardor Pendant
Bloodgem Earring
Cassie Earring
Drachen Armet +1
Wyrm Mail +2
Strendu Mantle
Egoist's Tathlum

1770HP + 630 HP= 2400 HP.
This means it will allow me to execute Healing Breath if my current HP is at or below 1200. Since my normal TP fighting gear has me at around 1770 max HP, I'd normally be able to use Healing Breath by casting a spell at 50% of that with /mage or 885, or at 33% of that with a hybrid subjob or 584 HP. But since I'm adding +630HP to my gear along with Drachen Armet +1, my max HP is boosted to 2400 so I can then execute a Healing Breath at 1200 which is around 68% of 1700 or at 792 which is about 45% of 1770. So with this method you can activate Healing Breath at a much higher threshold than without it, just make sure you macro into Wyvern HP gear and other healing breath enhancing equipment just as the breath activates!


For even more fun, do this in Abyssea where you can have 3500+ HP just from cruor buffs, with the gear you can achieve 4000 HP and acticate healing breaths at 2,000ish HP. If you have decent healing breath gear and you get the EXP bonus from your wyvern, you can activate healing breath at 2,000 HP and get a 1,000 healing breath which brings you near full HP. As long as a mob cannot 1 shot you from 2k HP(which most cannot!) you're basically unkillable because you're healing breath threshold will be 2,000 HP! Dragoon can easily solo most NMs in Abyssea(mostly the ones that don't use doom/death/petrify/amnesia/mute aura

[Ophannus]

If I'm fighting a mob which is capable of that, I save Super Jump or Restoring Breath for that occasion so I can use it in anticipation. Also should be using Platinum Grip as it can proc on WS and Jumps and procs a 6-10 second stun about 8-9% of the time. Also don't underestimate the speed of healing breath, its really not *that slow*, its like 2 seconds from the time it's triggered which is about as fast as most mages will cure you when considering their reaction time and their cure speed, also healing breath has no recast but Cure V and Cure 6 have major recast.

Target's I've soloed so far in Abyssea:
Long-Barreled Chariot
Dvallin
Durinn
Amhuluk
Fistule
Briareus
Lacovie
Cirein-Croin
Tunga
Ironclad Smiter
Sippoy
Kutherei

[Silkavenger]

If you're concerned about heavy -ga damage or high damage WSs there are some good options for drg to reach -50% damage taken these days. Gives you that much more room for error between heals. The HP+ gear is a big deal though if anyone doesn't do it already. I use pretty much the same things orphannus does with exception that I use mithra RSE.

Was able to solo the dagger attestation nm in dynamis beaucedine as well as baflau and arrapago remnants boss chariots this way.

[Anucris]

wow thanks for opening my eyes... thought drg had become really limited with solo, but tried this on one of the ironclads yesterday and it was very easy as long as i keep wyvern on the opposite side so HB dont get stunned.

[Anucris]

also i went a step further and grabbed the -13% PDT lance and tried it out.. most mobs hardest hits have only done about 1400-1500 on me with it + mekira meikogai and -6 dark rings. sometimes i only use 1 dark ring tho. its just nice when their biggest hit or tier 5 spell only drops you to 1400 hp. had hadhayosh to 10-15% today before he used curse spikes and i had to get a friend to help finish :(
gonna solo me a kannagi now :)
think it will be more fun than nin solo.

[Infidi]

What's your TP and WS gear, Ophannus? If you don't mind saying. ^^

[Ophannus]

Depends.
Solo?
/Mage?
NM or trash mobs(Dynamis, EP-T, Limbus etc..) mobs?
Different TP gear for each.
For trash mobs I just use my melee sub gear, if I'm fighting things that could actually kill me like NMs or bosses I use a TP set that stresses less Haste and more PDT/DT(So for hard NMs I use Mekira Oto/Mekira Meikogai instead of AF3 and use Dark Rings instead of Rajas and stuff, twilight neck instead of nefarious and Atheling instead of rancorous) if I'm soloing old content, I'll typically melee in normal melee sub gear though and switch to Ethereal Earring if I fall below 20MP. When I'm not fighting, my idle set on DRG/Mage is the twilight set with ogier hands/legs/feet with sheltered/p.ring and wiglen gorget so I get a 5tick/refresh and 8 tick regen when I'm not fighting which definitely helps and saves time and MP to cast Refresh on myself.

For WS, which WS? Stardiver?
Stardiver:
Chauvre-Souris
Pole Grip
Thew Bomblet
Mekira-oto+1
Soil Gorget
Brutal Earring
Vulcan Pearl
Phorcys Korazin
Phorcys Manapolas
Pyrosoul Ringx2
Atheling Mantle
Soil Belt
Lancer's Cuissoits+2
Heca Feet+1(STR+4 Attack+6 augment)

[ThaiChi]

I love this post. Any and all DRG/DNCs should be ridiculed. It's a shame to see so many DRGs who have no concept of how healing breath works.

I use parts of the Ares's set for the healing breath trigger, I don't know how that compares to the Hume RSE, but if u have access to any of that set (specifically legs, body, and feet) those are pretty good choices. Alky's bracelets are great too. And a Bloodbead Gorget if you don't mind camping WotG Fomors. I'm hitting that 2400HP mark on Galka with no HP merits, I could probably push more out of it, but for the sake of inventory I'm comfortable leaving it there.

[Silkavenger]

Just soloed Ovni last night this way. Not super duper hard, but a fun fight all the same. No belt dorp of course :/