Idea for a new DRG JA

[Ophannus]

One problem with DRG is losing the wyvern. The problem is, SE has addressed the issue with keeping the wyvern alive, so now it's actually very easy to keep it from dying. With Spirit Link at 90 seconds, the additional regen effect, the new 2hr, steady wing and the -40% Damage Taken, wyverns are near impossible to kill.

So what am I driving at? Wyverns die when the Dragoon dies. So despite our best efforts at keeping the Wyvern alive, if we die, we have to wait 20 minutes. During those 20minutes Dragoon is extremely weak, our TP and DoT drop dramatically as we lose our best asset. Now on to the main purpose of this post:

Fervency - Increases attack and attack speed. Cannot be used when Wyvern is present.
Level 60
Recast 20 minutes
Duration: 20minutes
Attack+15% Attack Speed+10%

This will give us *SOMETHING* to use when the player is killed in a difficult fight and we reraise and are now a lot weaker for the next 20minutes. No other job faces such a dire penalty. DRG is the sole job in the game that even after dying and being reraised and weakness wears off still faces a massive reduction in combat ability due to waiting for Call Wyvern.

Since SE said that they will not consider decreasing the recast on Call Wyvern except for implementing merit point reduction, I propose this ability to help reduce the pain and suffering DRGs endure when we die and lose our wyvern from the player dying. Although the Wyvern has very good durability and DRGs are more durable than before thanks to heightened evasion/hp/parrying, we can and will die in hard battlefields and endgame content due to strong enemy moves or doom/death. When we lose our pet our damage and usefulness drop massively. This ability will give the DRG an option to increase its abilities to compensate until Call Wyvern is up again.

SE might say this ability might encourage DRGs to not use Call Wyvern in favor of this ability, but I assure you +15% Attack and +10% attack speed will not be better than the massive TP and damage we get from Jumps and losing out on Healing Breath and Smiting Breath.

[Babekeke]

SE might say this ability might encourage DRGs to not use Call Wyvern in favor of this ability, but I assure you +15% Attack and +10% attack speed will not be better than the massive TP and damage we get from Jumps and losing out on Healing Breath and Smiting Breath.

Not to mention all the lovely TP we get from Spirit Link when /mage

[Ophannus]

It's also troublesome that both of our 2hr abilities require the Wyvern to be present in order to activate them. If we enter a fight, use Spirit Link, throw up Steady Wing and charge into battle and then get hit with a 1700+ AoE attack or an instant death move like Death Prophet or that move Akvan uses or some other random insta death move, our 2hr is worthless for 20 minutes. The DRG relies pretty heavily on the Wyvern only because DRG does not have any support abilities to use that do no rely on the Wyvern besides Angon and Jump. We need a stance or self enhancing ability to increase our damage besides Jump/High Jump. These abilities don't even make up for the loss of an attack round since they interrupt our delay, this was the reason why Spirit/Soul Jump were added.

So the problem lies in that even if our Wyvern is extremely durable, the Dragoon is not and we are still subject to being stunned/petrified and then being killed in 1-2 TP moves or getting instantly KO'd. It's just unreasonable that DRG is the ONLY job in the entire game that loses an aspect of gameplay for 20 minutes. If a BLM dies, they're weakened for 5minutes and it only takes 2-3min of resting to recover all their MP. If a DRG dies and unweakens, they're still not at full battle potential for another 20minutes. Giving us something to fall back on when the wyvern isn't alive is the first step into making DRG a more balanced class.


Secondly while we're on the subject of 2hrs, can the community representatives forward a suggestion to the developers for me regarding a adjustment to the new DRG 2hr ability? I would like to see the new DRG 2hr, in addition to resetting the timers for Restoring Breath and Smiting Breath, also restore the recast timer for Call Wyvern. This way, in a big battle, a DRG can call his Wyvern, throw up Steady Wing and Spirit Link with Empathy and then use the new 2hr to ensure that even if he or his wyvern dies, he can call his wyvern back immediately upon being raised. I can't stress this enough. Please let the new 2hr restore the Call Wyvern recast timer to 0.

[Mathieu]

Yeah, this is way, way better than what the wyvern does outside soloing with a /mage sub. Even under ideal situations (low defense, relatively low level enemies), the wyvern damage isn't a huge deal. Boosting the much better Dragoon DPS, would be far superior to what the wyvern does, especially by increasing attack speed. You would get far more TP from that alone then from Spirit Link.

Yeah, sometimes the Wyvern dies. It's not supposed to be something you can always rely on, just like how Dark Knights and Dancers have abilities that won't work on undead. It's a noticeable DPS increase, although you are significantly exaggerating how much it is, capable of generating massive heals for almost no MP on a consistent basis, and can add a hefty amount of damage to weapon skills. The downside is that it can die. Removing the downside by making the Dragoon's DPS increase by more than the DPS added by the wyvern doesn't do that.

[Ophannus]

Actually I take it all back, we should be able to rock this JA whenever regardless if the Wyvern is alive or not. Freaking DRKs get Souleater, WAR's get Berserk and craploads of double attack. Our wyvern does almost nothing in endgame fights parsing less than 1% of total damage in a legion battle. We need some kind of JA haste and attack boosting JA. Even Gungnir DRGs can't even come anywhere near a Ukkon WAR or Ragnarok DRK. DRG is far too weak at 99 compared to other melees, stop boosting the wyvern and boost the dragoon. It was cute that they gave us more HP, evasion and parrying but it would have been better if we got more attack and accuracy bonuses to make up for freaking "CRITICAL DEFENSE BONUS" which offers us nothing offensive(Critical Defense Bonus is a worthless trait for dragoons because we almost never get it due to practically never having hate) replace with Critical Attack Bonus please, we aren't Paladins.

[Ophannus]

One other idea I want to emphasize for the Devs consideration is to give us some kind of damage buff like Attack or Attack Speed that would be a stance ability; the penalty would be the wyvern would be unable to use breaths passively(only with pet commands) for the duration. It's troublesome to use Spirit Link to increase our TP when our wyvern's TP is reset after each WS. Giving us a way to restrict breaths unless we use Restoring or Smiting Breath would be an excellent way for us to take advantage of the TP transfer aspect of Spirit Link.

An alternate suggestion would be to give a pet command to increase wyvern attack speed/accuracy/attack power but restrict automatic breaths, serving the same purpose but enhancing the wyvern's damage instead of our own. read:lamer

[Calysto]

the idea is good, but a ja with 20mmn recast and 20 mn duration is not.
-it get dispelled or you die again : no improvement over now
-use it then call wyvern : probably too good

add to that the "ja recast cap" and that wouldn't happens.

now, if you take theses stats and just put them on a job trait active with no wyvern, it's all good.
(maybe throw some store tp with it)

[Mayoyama]

No other job faces such a dire penalty.

double weak blms/sch/rdm (nuking) and rngs/cor would argue against this point... >.>

[Martel]

double weak blms/sch/rdm (nuking) and rngs/cor would argue against this point... >.>

Except that once those Mages/RNG'd DD unweak they're back at full potency. 3~5 min penalty.(got Arise?) Whereas a DRG gets to wait up to an additional 15 min(depending on when you last called wyvern) before we're back at full strength.

[Ophannus]

^That is what I was trying to convey and wasn't sure if others knew what I meant. No other job is as hindered as DRG is for as long as DRG is after dying and reraising.

[Babekeke]

double weak blms/sch/rdm (nuking) and rngs/cor would argue against this point... >.>

Shouldn't have got in a position to die again while still weak.

[Iakothm]

I am still confused why us Dragoons are the only pet class that cannot command our dragon to attack and when we are not engaged on a target our pet just sits there. I honestly think Dragoons need an attack and retreat command for the dragon.

[Ophannus]

^ The reason for this is simple.

Being a pet job isn't an ON/OFF ALL/NOTHING 1/0 deal. It's a continuum. Although there are jobs with pets, we're not all created equal. Although BST, SMN, PUP can control pets more than we can, those jobs are vastly more useless without their pet than DRG is. True DRG is hampared a great deal in hard fights without the wyvern but on general exp mobs or low content mobs, DRG can hold its own without the wyvern. We have several attack/acc traits, very good armor/gear and A+ skill. SMN and PUP have lower weapon ratings and BST has almost no offensive traits or abilities outside of their sub. DRG is more of a DD that has a pet rather than a pet job that can DD. So since the BST is weak but the pet is strong, the PUP is 50/50 with its automaton and SMN is 25/75% with its avatar, DRG I'd say is 80%/20% with its pet(or in hard fights 99%/1%)

Besides gameplay/balance reasons, the story says that Wyverns are intelligent and autonomous beings. The DRG shares a holy spiritual bond with its wyvern. Summoners sacrifice their life energies to forge a pact with a god to borrow its essence temporarily and thus controls mastery over the spirit for a short time. Beastmasters 'lure' and 'tame wild beasts to do their bidding and use their mastery over animals to control pets with food or commands. Puppetmasters operate their automatons using an animator, a device which transmits literal signals to the robot. Dragoons do not enslave or control the wyvern. We don't activate or summon them. We 'call them' and we don't use bait or broths to lure them out. The Wyvern doesn't really listen to us, it mimics or copies us. It has its own autonomy. When we attack, it attacks. When we WS,it WS. When we cast it casts. It's a mutual bond, not slavery,entrapment,pact or manipulation like with other pet classes.

[Tanama]

Very well written, Orphannus.

To add to that, our wyverns should at least mature a bit in size going from an infant, to pre-adolescence or an adolescent stage where it's appearance changes slightly and grows a bit bigger in size.

Addendum edit: I actually don't care about this as much as I do for much the much needed buff to DRG's damage.

[Tanama]

While they're at it, the dev-team could also give us a true form of the traditional Dragoon ability Lancet (http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Lancet). I say true form because Spirit Surge on here is actually named Lancet on the Japanese version. Here's a quote from the Final Fantasy wiki:


Lancet (竜剣, Ryuuken?, lit. "Dragon Sword")
is an ability in several games in the Final Fantasy series. It is usually associated with the Dragoon job class. Lancet allows characters to absorb HP and MP from their opponents.

In Final Fantasy V, it takes around half of the MP of what normal Osmose spells take, and a small amount of HP compared to the Drain spell, but it has no chance of missing.

In Final Fantasy XIV, Life Surge is a Lancer ability that temporarily enables attacks to absorb HP and reduce the target's evasion. Enhanced Life Surge increased the amount of HP recovered.

[Ophannus]

Spirit Surge= Lancet, look at the animation(blue beams coming off the Wyvern into us). It is a true lancet, it's just that it saps the Wyvern, taking its Strength, Max HP, Attack Speed, not the enemy's.

[Tennotsukai]

I definitely agree with Ophannus on this. Drg needs a couple or few nice ja's. The wyvern lacks damage, definitely.

[Babekeke]

Any boost to DRG is inevitably going to have to be a compromise. Lose the wyvern for better DD capability. Asking for anything else would risk making DRG too overpowered when soloing, unfortunately.

This is the main thing that is keeping DRG from performing along with the big-hitters. A boost to damage that is also available when soloing drg/mage would make the job on par with BST for soloability, and if you look at BST, it's balance is never being invited for any end-game events.

Right now, DRG is acceptable for end-game events, though not on par with bandwagnarok wars and drks, yet it's also a very good soloer, on par with PLD RDM BLU NIN; none of whom get invited to DD in end-game.

[Rekin]

Any boost to DRG is inevitably going to have to be a compromise. Lose the wyvern for better DD capability. Asking for anything else would risk making DRG too overpowered when soloing, unfortunately.

This is the main thing that is keeping DRG from performing along with the big-hitters. A boost to damage that is also available when soloing drg/mage would make the job on par with BST for soloability, and if you look at BST, it's balance is never being invited for any end-game events.

Right now, DRG is acceptable for end-game events, though not on par with bandwagnarok wars and drks, yet it's also a very good soloer, on par with PLD RDM BLU NIN; none of whom get invited to DD in end-game.
A better question is why even make jobs with varying functions but still retain the general premise of earlier jobs if they aren't going to be used in any significant event?

The ability to solo worthless-minor content should not hinder a job's ability to perform on par or comparatively with jobs who're designed towards specifics (IE. War= DD). The very notion is silly in a game where community is enforced by design. What makes jobs great is their ability to compete with other jobs within a given role granting flavor to the game that isn't terrible.

Take for example the random jelly beans bag from harry potter. Just because snot is a new kind of flavor doesn't mean anyone wants it.

[Tanama]

Any boost to DRG is inevitably going to have to be a compromise. Lose the wyvern for better DD capability.

Honestly, I would gladly give up my wyvern for improved damage-dealing capabilities. I mean this as a normal job ability and not as an SP ability. Anything along the lines of Berserk, Last Resort, Souleater where our penalty is the wyvern's absence.