Dragoon Manifesto thoughts

[Logandor]

Honestly never have teamed up with a drk in aby :/ the reason I have been considering quitting drg was multiple things. If we could just be brought up to an even level in aby, atmas, gear, whatever, even job traits I would most likely re-pull the job out and try my luck on it. Like when the new update comes out with level cap increase I will bring her back out to repimp her for 99 first over any of my other 90s. I am not saying this is the same for all servers about parties or saying I am lousy. I am decent on dragoon, not perfect, but put me up against some mobs outside aby and that's when I feel dragoon rains and shines supreme. This game was not designed for soloers that I do know and I fully believe to this day to be true but when you have to because no one wants to team up on mobs even with the gear/items being free lot except for certain seals here and there you start to feel outta place referring to offering gil and lots of it or (in my instance my service of whm to whatever mob they want for hours on end just for one or two seals.) Probably because I am a nice person but very few instances when a dragoon can sit in jeuno and do shouts for hand seals, body seals, leg seals, feet seals, or head seals help and actually get help. Now enough about my reasons because other then aby I have nothing to complain on with it.
What I would like to see is some job traits added though to put us on a little bit of level ground with others.
Job Traits: (names can be changed for these later)
Emergency Evasion: if your character drops below 40% health your evasion increases by 50% and your regen you automatically have increases how much hp you recieve with +5% tic increase instead of it's current. This gives the dragoon an advantage that if they are in a sticky situation to move out of it and hopefully get in range of a healer or escape the pending death by mass dance/heals. If equipped with eva atmas this stacks on top of it.This trait stays in effect till hp recovers to 75%.
Emergency Attack: hp drops below 40% our attack increases by 50% untill hp is back at 75%. This does stack with the atmas just like the other.
Wyvern traits:
Emergency breath: if wyvern's hp hits below 40% she cast healing breath III on her self, this will not interrupt or interfere with other breaths caused by weapon skilling or forced breaths. It will also allow the dragoon to spirit link without worry that it will be too late to save their little comrade.

Other then that I can't really complain but I felt like tossing my two cents out there as ideas. Sense these are traits they won't take up needed macro slots or give us insane list of j.a. to have to scroll through. I feel they would put us up on a decent level with the other jobs and yes I do know we have atmas and gear to help with it already but with these little add-ons I would gladly pull my dragoon out of retirement for a good old aby party any day. ^.^ Outside aby I use the job a ton it's only inside aby I've had to hang up the job.

[Ophannus]

I wish there was a way to inhibit a Wyvern from using Elemental Breaths after your WS so you can use Spirit Link's TP transfer easier to use. Maybe make it a pet command?

Vanguard
Level 1
Wyvern's breath potency and accuracy is enhanced, but defense is lowered

In this state breath potency is enhanced but they take 25% more damage from physical/magical sources.

Rearguard
Level 1
Wyvern will not use breaths regularly and will take reduced damage.

In this state, the wyvern won't use Healing Breath from a spell or Attack breaths from a WS but will still use them via Restoring/Smiting Breaths. In addition the wyvern will suffer 25% less damage from physical and magical sources.

This would be good for things like HNM or Battlefields where Wyvern breaths already suck in terms of damage while letting the wyvern build up TP without it being expended on said weak breaths. This in turn would let the DRG spirit link and take 50% of their TP store(which I imagine could be pretty high on long fights) giving the DRG a TP battery not unlike an instant Meditate every 3 minutes(only giving you 150ish TP assuming the wyvern can keep up 300% TP every 180 seconds)

Also I understand that SE said they wish to rebalance combat skills for jobs in the future. If that's the case can DRG get a B+ in evasion like MNK and SAM? The reason is, SAM already has tools to reduce damage but DRG barely has any. DRGs are also nimble and jump super high yet our evasion skill is awful. We also tend to(well in FFXI's earlier days) wear lighter armor than SAM. ALternatively, give us a higher parrying skill. Historically, Samurai did not parry with their blades. Katanas make super poor tools for absorbing the shock of another blade, wheres broad swords were better tempered for this. Additionally a lance, being a pole of solid metal can parry a lot easier. Also give DRG an A- in Staves and let us use Exclusive Staff weapon skills. A staff is exactly like a polearm, without the point. This will offset the piercing penalty DRG suffers on things like Skeletons.

I think DRG could benefit from stances too Amador(btw this is Seraphus, hii!) but I feel they won't give them to us since our Wyvern is a cheap cop out reason to not give DRG nice things that other melee have(like damage mitigation and self enhancing buffs i.e berser/hasso/yonin). I'd like to see some self buffing abilities though:

Fervor: "Increases attack speed of players in an area of effect." Basically a Haste version of Blood Rage/Warcry/Rampart. For 30-45 seconds, it grants a 10-15% JA haste to players in range.

Job Trait: Rending Attack. "Attacks occasionally ignore defense". This will be DRG's Zanshin/Double Attack/Triple Attack/Kick Attacks-type trait. 5-10% proc rate, can proc on WS and Jumps too. When it procs, a large portion of defense is ignored for that hit.

Wyrm Charge: Next attack ignores defense. Basically a JA that forces Rending Attack to activate on the next attack not unlike Warrior's Charge/Assassin's Charge.

Siege: Increases attack speed but weakens Wyvern attack.
A weaker version of Berserk, more like Last Resort, 3 min duration

[Coldbrand]

A Dragoon should never be using anything but a lance in my opinion.

[Ophannus]

Situational. Every job should have at least one other weapon with a high skill. PLDs have club and GS, DRK has GS, WHM has Staff, DNC has sword and h2h, THF has sword, BLU has club. DRG using staff, like I said, could be good for Cataclysm or for when fighting something weak to blunt and strong to piercing like Skellies

[Karbuncle]

I wouldn't Consider h2h/sword on DNC/THF "High Skills", THF Has D Sword, and DNC has D Sword and D h2h.

While i do agree with the basic principle of each job having ~2 fallback skills, DNC and THF got f*cked hard there.

[Ophannus]

Meh DNC/THF can dual wield and they both have Jesus evasion and can solo 90% of FFXI.

[Seha]

Abyssea isn't 90% of FFXI.

That being said, go on.

[Yugl]

The following are ideas that don't necessarily reflect the best changes, but most accurately reflect changes SE would approve

Stances
Defensive (Probably a flat DT enhancement) + Rapid enmity build per action (Wyvern: Locks Offensive Breaths + Gains Potent Regen)
Offensive (Partial ignore defense/Flat cratio boost + Bypass ACC cap while under this effect) + Enmity rapid enmity decay/suppressed enmity generation (Wyvern: Locks Healing Breaths + Gains Regain)

Wyvern
Flat DT traits
Reduced spirit link recast + Stoneskin based on current HP
*Inc boooo* Ability for the wyvern to steal enemy's TP
Note: SE needs to fix the wyvern before looking at melee capabilities since they have a habit of tying DRG's abilities to the wyvern

Stand-alone abilities
Gain stoneskin based on wyvern's HP (Assuming they fix wyvern survivability)
Impart a flash type effect on the mob (Complements DRG's lightning property; maybe use Shin no Kaminari for the name as that one JP suggested)
AoE short duration critical hit rate enhancement (Haste would be a bad idea considering the duration; most of those abilities are reserved for spike damage)
10% Defense reduction ability (Overwritten by Angon)
*Inc booo* JA to gain Wyvern's base damage
Steal Wyvern's TP on the next WS as TP Bonus and cancels the next breath attack (Short recast)
AoE 10% bonus to WSC% of next WS/AoE fTP bonus
Aftermath on Jumps? Haste/Critical hit rate boost (Take your pick)
JA Attack or STR+DEX bonus based on number of PT members (Maybe even grant to PT members)


Traits
Consolidate Conserve TP's TP return (Perhaps 19TP?)
5% Haste trait/Randomized haste bonus each hit

[Reiterpallasch]

Meh DNC/THF can dual wield and they both have Jesus evasion and can solo 90% of FFXI.

Last I checked Jesus didn't have the best eva since he couldn't dodge a handful of nails and some wood. Even gimps can get apoc atma though so at least he had that going for him.

[Yugl]

Your signature is amazing.